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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will begin a major push next week to convince the public of the need for tax reform, shifting his focus to fiscal policy in an effort to win a big legislative victory by the end of the year, The Financial Times reported on Friday. Trump would begin the effort next Wednesday with a speech in Missouri, the first in a series of addresses to generate public support on the issue, Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, told the newspaper. “We are completely engaged in tax reform,” Cohn told the FT in an interview. “Starting next week the president’s agenda and calendar is going to revolve around tax reform. He will start being on the road making major addresses justifying the reasoning for tax reform.” Although Cohn stressed that tax reform would be front and center of Trump’s agenda, the Republican-controlled Congress faces two other pressing issues when it returns from its August recess on Sept. 5. Lawmakers need to approve an increase in the U.S. debt ceiling to allow the federal government to keep borrowing money and paying its bills, including its debt obliterations. Separately they need to pass at least stop-gap spending measures to keep the government operating. Deadlines on both issues will loom within weeks after lawmakers return from their break. Asked by the FT whether the debate over the debt ceiling could derail the tax reform drive, Cohn said that “at the end of the day, Congress has to increase the debt ceiling - that is just the reality.” He added that this would be in September, before tax reform legislation. “The key point is this: tax reform is the White House’s number one focus right now,” he added. Cohn said White House officials had been working with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and other leading congressional Republicans on “an outline and skeleton” for the tax reform proposal, “and we have a good skeleton that we have agreed to.” The details Cohn discussed were similar to those mentioned by Ryan at a meeting with Boeing employees on Thursday. Asked whether the focus on tax reform had been complicated by Twitter attacks by the Republican president on McConnell and Ryan, Cohn said the White House officials worked well with the two “and we have made a massive amount of progress” on taxes. Cohn said the House Ways and Means Committee would put more “flesh and bone” on the tax reform plan when lawmakers return from the recess. He said he believed a bill could pass tax committees in both chambers and be passed by both the House and Senate by the end of 2017. In the case of individual taxpayers, Cohn said the president’s reform plan would protect the three big deductions that people can claim on taxes: for home mortgages, charitable giving and retirement savings. Beyond that, it would increase the caps for the standard deduction while eliminating most other personal deductions, Cohn said. The plan also aims to get rid of taxes on estates left when people die. Cohn said for businesses, the administration is proposing to lower corporate tax rates, while eliminating many of the deductions that businesses use to reduce the amount of tax they must pay. Asked whether the corporate tax rate could be cut to 15 percent as previously suggested by Trump, Cohn said, “I would like to get the tax rate as low as possible so that businesses want to create jobs here.” He said the administration would propose going to a system where American companies would not have to pay additional tax when they bring profits earned overseas back to the United States. “Today, they often have to pay extra taxes for bringing profits back to the U.S.,” Cohn said. “Our current system basically creates a penalty for headquartering in the U.S.” He said the administration did envision a one-time low tax rate on all overseas profits. | Trump to begin tax reform push next week, White House adviser tells FT |
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has two proposals on how to secure a frictionless border with EU member Ireland after Brexit, a new customs partnership or a highly streamlined approach to customs, Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire said on Sunday. We set out two proposals in relation to how we would deal with the issue of tariffs, how we would deal with those sorts of elements in relation to customs whether that be a new customs partnership where we would effectively apply a similar or the same tariff that the EU currently applies to goods coming into the EU, or a highly streamlined approach with effectively exemptions that would apply for small business, he told Sky News. | Britain has ways to secure no hard border with Ireland post-Brexit, says minister |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bill Nelson sent letters to the chief executives of 10 major U.S.-based airlines on Monday, urging them to cap airline fares for passengers fleeing Hurricane Maria so that confusion over cost does not delay evacuations, an aide said. I urge you to begin the process now for implementing capped airfare, Nelson said in his letter, noting that Maria is already a major hurricane. Individuals and families should not be forced to delay or cancel their evacuation efforts because of confusion over the cost of airfare. | Senator urges U.S. airlines to cap fares for people fleeing Maria |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans have reached a tentative budget deal that could allow tax reform legislation to eliminate as much as $1.5 trillion in revenues over 10 years through tax cuts, raising the odds that their planned tax overhaul would expand the federal deficit. Two members of the Senate Budget Committee, Republicans Pat Toomey and Bob Corker, announced the formal agreement late on Tuesday, but their joint news release did not provide dollar figures for revenue reduction or tax cuts. The prospective tax cuts are part of closed-door talks among 12 Senate Budget Committee Republicans who are drafting a fiscal 2018 budget measure needed to help the 100-member Senate pass a tax overhaul with as few as 51 Republicans votes and prevent Democrats from blocking the legislation. The U.S. economy is in a steady expansion and stock markets are rising. But the tax cuts being weighed by congressional Republicans, with encouragement from President Donald Trump, are on a scale normally reserved for times of economic hardship and intended to drive annual economic growth above 3 percent. Trump campaigned last year on a promise of comprehensive tax reform. But Republicans have made little tangible progress toward that ambitious goal so far. Toomey told reporters he is confident that Republicans will agree to a budget resolution that foresees a deficit in the first decade. He said, however, that talks have not settled definitively on $1.5 trillion. “I’d like to see a bigger number,” said Toomey, who argues that tax cuts would increase economic growth. In their joint news release, Toomey and Corker said they agreed on a budget resolution that would use a standard analysis of the impact of the tax cuts on the deficit. Some Republicans like Toomey have pushed for a “dynamic” model, which tends to assume an increased economic stimulus effect from tax cuts, resulting in smaller projected increases to the deficit. Senator John Thune, a member of the Senate Republican leadership team, said he expected the agreement to provide maximum flexibility to craft a tax overhaul capable of driving economic growth and ultimately raising worker wages. But looming in the background is Washington’s steady flow of red ink that adds every year to the $20 trillion national debt, a target of outrage not long ago for Republican “fiscal hawks.” In recent weeks, some fiscal hawks have expressed a willingness to consider deficit financing for tax reform but many at levels well below $500 billion. Toomey’s comments suggest Senate Republicans may be looking to deficit spending as a way to cut taxes on businesses and individuals while avoiding hard decisions that would be needed to raise taxes elsewhere or eliminate popular tax breaks. If adopted by Congress in a budget resolution, the $1.5 trillion figure would set a ceiling on how much revenue tax reform could eliminate over 10 years. Analysts and Democrats have warned that higher deficits resulting from tax cuts would eventually overwhelm economic growth at a time when U.S. interest rates are set to rise. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, whose panel would use the budget figure in crafting a tax reform bill, told reporters he was not sure that revenue losses of $1.5 trillion were needed for tax reform. Senator Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee’s top Democrat, dismissed the development as a distraction from the more important question of how Republican tax reform would ultimately benefit the wealthy. “It looks to me like yet another trial balloon,” Wyden said. Republicans have been unable to agree on how to pay for tax cuts and other proposed tax changes, aside from arguing that some lost revenue would be clawed back from the buoyant economic growth they believe tax reform will deliver. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to do tax cuts that pay for themselves,” said Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, another budget committee Republican. “But I think most people would concede that cutting taxes does stimulate the economy.” | Senate Republicans weigh tax cuts, deficit expansion |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional leaders and White House officials will release a document during the week of Sept. 25 outlining the framework for tax reform, a congressional source said on Wednesday. Afterward, the goal is for Congress to finish the budget process by mid-October, the source said. | Tax reform framework will appear end-Sept.: Congress source |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama does plan to sign a North Korea sanctions bill, the White House said on Wednesday. In a press briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Josh Earnest gave no indication of when such a measure might come. | Obama plans to sign North Korea sanctions bill: White House |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department, reacting to Spanish efforts to block a Catalan independence bid, said on Friday that Catalonia is an integral part of Spain and Washington backs Madrid s efforts to keep the country united. Catalonia is an integral part of Spain, and the United States supports the Spanish government s constitutional measures to keep Spain strong and united, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. | U.S. backs Spanish efforts to block break-away by Catalonia |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump will meet this weekend with Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a Pence spokesman said on Friday, after a report the governor was being vetted as a potential running mate for the Republican presidential candidate. As the Republican candidate for vice president, Pence, a social conservative from a Midwestern state, could help the real estate mogul reassure wary Republicans. The governor, who faces a tight race for re-election to a second term in Indiana, has praised Trump in the past but did not back him in the Republican Party’s nominating race. “Governor Pence has accepted an invitation to spend a little time with Mr. Trump this weekend,” said Marc Lotter, deputy campaign manager of Pence’s re-election effort. “This meeting is very consistent with meetings Mr. Trump is holding with many key party leaders.” Earlier, MSNBC, citing unnamed sources, said Trump is considering Pence, 57, as a potential running mate. The network, which first reported the upcoming meeting, said it was part of the vetting process. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich are also under consideration to be Trump’s running mate, sources told Reuters. “Trump is meeting with a number of Republican leaders in the run-up to the convention in Cleveland, and he has a good relationship with Gov. Pence,” Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said in an email. Republicans will hold their party convention July 18-21 in Cleveland to formally pick their nominee ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Trump, 70, a real estate mogul and former television reality star, was scheduled to speak at rally in Colorado on Friday. He has said he has narrowed down his potential running mates to five or six contenders, according to media reports. On Thursday, Pence told reporters he had not spoken with Trump since before Indiana’s May 3 primary contest, MSNBC said. The governor had earlier pledged to back former Trump rival Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas and Tea Party favorite. | Trump to meet Indiana Governor Mike Pence over the weekend |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior Republican U.S. senators criticized Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday for saying that Russia may have the “right approach” on Syria and for what they called his lack of focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. “His statements about Syria really disturb me. No, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not have it right when it comes to Syria,” Senator Lindsey Graham said. In separate television interviews, Graham and Senator John McCain, prominent Republican foreign policy voices, took aim at Tillerson’s remarks last week that Russia may have “got the right approach” and the United States the wrong approach to Syria. Russia has backed President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war, while the United States supports rebel groups trying to overthrow him. McCain told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he “sometimes” regretted backing Tillerson’s nomination by Republican President Donald Trump and that his comments on Russia being “right” on Syria made him emotional and upset. “I know what the slaughter has been like. I know that the Russians knew that Bashar Assad was going to use chemical weapons. And to say that maybe we’ve got the wrong approach?” he said. Both senators backed the nomination of Tillerson in January, even while expressing concern about his dealings with Russia when he was chief executive of ExxonMobil. (XOM.N) Graham, who visited Afghanistan and Pakistan last week with McCain, accused Tillerson of being “AWOL” on the two countries and failing to fill key State Department posts. “I am so worried about the State Department,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” A State Department official responded to the criticism of Tillerson by saying that a U.S.-Russian-brokered ceasefire for southwest Syria was an example of what the secretary had described as the potential to coordinate with Russia, in spite of unresolved differences, “to produce stability and serve our mutual security interests.” The official, who did not want to be identified, also said the State Department was taking an active role in a review of Afghanistan and Pakistan policy and continued to work with the White House on nominations. Since the exit of most foreign troops in 2014, Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government has lost ground to a Taliban insurgency in a war that kills and maims thousands of civilians each year. | Two senior Republican senators criticize Tillerson comments on Russia |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said on Monday that indictments announced by Special Counsel Robert Mueller do not change anything regarding his panel’s investigation of potential Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. “It doesn’t change anything with our investigation,” Burr said in a statement. “We received documents from and had interest in two of the individuals named, but clearly the criminal charges put them in the Special Counsel’s purview.” | Senate Intelligence chairman: Indictments do not change panel's investigation |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dominican-born Adriano Espaillat claimed victory on Tuesday in the U.S. congressional race to succeed longtime Representative Charles Rangel, signaling change in the historically black neighborhood of Harlem that has grown increasingly Hispanic. Nine Democrats ran in the primary to select the party’s candidate for November’s general election. In a district where Democratic voters heavily outnumber Republicans, Tuesday’s winner will have a virtual lock on taking Rangel’s vacated seat in the House of Representatives. Espaillat, once an illegal immigrant, would be the first Dominican-American member of Congress. A state senator, Espaillat, held a 3-point lead on state Assemblyman Keith Wright, an African-American who was endorsed by Rangel and benefited from the political machine of a man who held the job for 46 years. With 98 percent of polling places reporting, Espaillat had 36.7 percent of the vote compared with 33.7 percent for Wright, a difference of nearly 1,300 votes. “The voters of the 13th congressional district made history tonight,” Espaillat, 61, said in a victory speech. “The voters ... elected a country boy from Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic,” he said, mixing Spanish and English. Wright, however, refused to concede, telling supporters: “No candidate can declare victory tonight, not until every vote is counted.” The district is dominated by Harlem, long a leading cultural center, home to black political and commercial life, and an incubator for jazz. Harlem notably has grown more white with gentrification, but it also has become more Hispanic. Besides Harlem, the district also includes predominantly Latino neighborhoods further to the north where Espaillat has his base. Rangel, 86, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, won his first congressional election in 1970, and since then Harlem voters routinely returned him to office every two years, even after his 2010 censure for ethics violations. Espaillat tried and failed to unseat Rangel in 2012 and 2014 primary elections. Gentrification emerged as a leading issue in the campaign, as a decade-long influx of affluent people, many of them white, has transformed Harlem’s once-blighted blocks of 19th century brownstone town houses. Change has muted the distinctive black identity of the area, the home of the Apollo Theater, the Cotton Club and other monuments of African-American culture. Once an upscale Dutch neighborhood named after the city near Amsterdam, Harlem drew African-Americans during the northward migration of former slaves in the late 19th Century and again between the world wars. In decades past, affluent New Yorkers avoided venturing too far north, or “uptown.” But soaring property values have turned Harlem into one of New York’s trendiest real estate markets. | Hispanic claims victory in Harlem race to replace Rangel in U.S. Congress |
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed into law on Sunday a measure to punish “sanctuary cities,” despite a plea from police chiefs of the state’s biggest cities to halt the bill they said would hinder their ability to fight crime. The Texas measure comes as Republican U.S. President Donald Trump has made combating illegal immigration a priority. Texas, which has an estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants and the longest border with Mexico of any U.S. state, has been at the forefront of the immigration debate. “As governor, my top priority is public safety, and this bill furthers that objective by keeping dangerous criminals off our streets,” Abbott said in a statement. The law will take effect on Sept. 1. The Republican-dominated legislature passed the bill on party-line votes and sent the measure to Abbott earlier this month. It would punish local authorities who do not abide by requests to cooperate with federal immigration agents. Police officials found to be in violation of the law could face removal from office, fines and up to a year in prison if convicted. The measure also allows police to ask people about their immigration status during a lawful detention, even for minor infractions like jaywalking. Any anti-sanctuary city measure may face a tough road after a federal judge in April blocked Trump’s executive order seeking to withhold funds from local authorities that do not use their resources to advance federal immigration laws. Democrats have warned the measure could lead to unconstitutional racial profiling and civil rights groups have promised to fight the Texas measure in court. “This legislation is bad for Texas and will make our communities more dangerous for all,” the police chiefs of cities including Houston and Dallas wrote in an opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News in late April. They said immigration was a federal obligation and the law would stretch already meager resources by turning local police into immigration agents. The police chiefs said the measure would widen a gap between police and immigrant communities, creating a class of silent victims and eliminating the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving or preventing crimes. One of the sponsors of the bill, Republican state Representative Charlie Geren, said in House debate the bill would have no effect on immigrants in the country illegally if they had not committed a crime. He also added there were no sanctuary cities in Texas at present and the measure would prevent any from emerging. | Texas governor signs into law bill to punish 'sanctuary cities' |
PENSACOLA, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed on Friday that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be “shot out of the water” if he is elected on Nov. 8. Trump, at a rally before thousands of supporters in Pensacola, Florida, laid out an aggressive national security policy with a beefed-up U.S. military “so strong that nobody’s going to mess with us.” He talked tough about how he would respond to any Iranian harassment of American ships in the Gulf. A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship changed course after an Iranian fast-attack craft came within 100 yards (91 meters) of it on Sunday. It was the fourth such incident in the past month. “When they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water,” he said. Trump has based his foreign policy beliefs on keeping the United States out of what he called “endless wars” in the Middle East. Visiting a city with a U.S. Navy base and where many military veterans live, Trump said he wants a stronger military to project American power and bolster the United States as the leader of the world. Trump this week laid out a plan to spend many billions of dollars on bolstering the U.S. military, including more ships, planes and troops. “We’re going to put us in a position of leadership of the world again so we can negotiate from a position of great, great strength. But more important than negotiating, we will be secure again,” he said. Trump, who has drawn criticism for his frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also mentioned a recent incident in which a Russian fighter jet came within 10 feet (3 meters) of a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the Black Sea. “Putin laughs, believe me, he laughs at our leaders. Yesterday he had a plane 10 feet away, taunting us, toying with us, just like Iran,” he said. | Trump vows harsh response to Iranian vessels that harass U.S. Navy |
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - An international investigation into who is to blame for chemical weapons attacks in Syria will end on Friday after Russia blocked for the third time in a month attempts at the United Nations to renew the inquiry, which Moscow has slammed as flawed. In the past two years, the joint U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inquiry has found the Syrian government used the nerve agent sarin in an April 4 attack and has also several times used chlorine as a weapon. It blamed Islamic State militants for using mustard gas. Russia vetoed on Friday a Japanese-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution to extend the inquiry for one month. It was an eleventh-hour bid to buy more time for negotiations after Russia blocked U.S.-drafted resolutions on Thursday and Oct. 24 to renew the investigation, which the council created in 2015. Syrian ally Russia has cast 11 vetoes on possible Security Council action on Syria since the country s civil war began in 2011. The Japanese draft received 12 votes in favor on Friday, while China abstained and Bolivia joined Russia to vote no. After Friday s vote, the council moved to closed-door discussions at the request of Sweden s U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog to ensure we are absolutely convinced we have exhausted every avenue, every effort to try and renew the investigation. After a brief discussion, Italian U.N. Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, council president for November, told reporters: The council will continue to work in the coming hours and days, constructively, to find a common position. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council earlier on Friday that the inquiry could only be extended if fundamental flaws in its work were fixed. He said that for the past two year the investigators had rubber-stamped baseless accusations against Syria. The council voted on a rival Russian-drafted resolution on Thursday to renew the inquiry, but it failed after only garnering four votes in favor. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Russia, Britain or China to be adopted. Russia is wasting our time, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the council on Friday. Russia s actions today and in recent weeks have been designed to delay, to distract and ultimately to defeat the effort to secure accountability for chemical weapons attacks in Syria, Haley said. While Russia agreed to the creation of the inquiry two years ago, it has consistently questioned its work and conclusions. The April 4 sarin attack on Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people prompted the United States to launch missiles on a Syrian air base. Haley warned on Thursday: We will do it again if we must. Despite the public deadlock and war of words between the United States and Russia at the United Nations, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Thursday that President Donald Trump believed he could work with Russian President Vladimir Putin on issues like Syria. Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. | Syria toxic gas inquiry to end after Russia again blocks U.N. renewal |
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq s parliament voted on Tuesday on a formula to halt financial transactions with the Kurdistan region, in retaliation for last week s independence referendum, Iraqi State TV said, without specifying if vote was binding on the government. The formula would preserve the interests of Kurdish citizens, the channel said, hinting that the measures would target the Kurdish leadership. The channel gave no further details. | Iraq parliament votes to halt transactions with Kurdistan: state TV |
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India on Monday formed a panel of government officials to investigate cases that figure in the so-called Paradise Papers, a trove of leaked documents about offshore investments of wealthy individuals and institutions. Officials from government bodies and the central bank will carry out and monitor the investigation, the finance ministry said. The leaked documents were obtained by Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and some media outlets. Reuters has not independently verified the documents which relate to the affairs of individuals and institutions ranging from U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and trading firm Glencore (GLEN.L). | India orders investigation after Paradise Papers leak |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It will be difficult for future U.S. administrations to undo President Barack Obama’s policy of easing trade and travel restrictions with Cuba because of the benefits associated with the measures, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. “We’ve increased the space for this type of travel, people to people exchange, commercial opportunities in ways that are already having a positive impact on the lives of Americans and Cubans,” the official said. “Turning back the clock on that policy would only take away those opportunities.” | U.S. policy changes on Cuba will be tough to undo: official |
EDINBURGH/OTTAWA (Reuters) - The standoff between Madrid and supporters of independence in Spain s wealthy Catalan region has stirred separatist feelings far beyond the Spanish borders. Politicians across the globe criticized armed Spanish police who used truncheons and rubber bullets on voters, injuring hundreds in a crackdown on Sunday s secession vote, considered illegal under Spain s 1978 Constitution. Several politicians from regions with their own separatist movements said it was time for politics to resolve the crisis in the euro zone s fourth-biggest economy. Catalan leaders said the result showed its people wanted to leave Spain and it would push ahead with secession. Madrid has ruled out talks until, it said, Catalonia acts within the law. The solution is political. It won t be through repression, it won t be through brutality, and what needs to happen is a political discussion. I think that s reality, Quebec s premier Philippe Couillard told reporters. He drew parallels for a potential solution to his own province, which has held two referendums on whether to separate from Canada and the last of which in 1995 was narrowly defeated. Other politicians called on the European Union, currently facing a huge challenge to its unity in Britain s impending exit from the bloc, to intervene in a deepening crisis that has shaken the euro and Spanish stocks and bonds. They said it was a matter of human rights. Joanna Cherry, a lawmaker from the Scottish National Party, called on the EU to up its game. Her party lost a legally binding referendum on Scottish independence from the UK in 2014 the terms of which were hammered out between both sides. The SNP-led Scottish government is urging talks to let Catalans decide their own future. Spain will maintain that this vote is not legitimate, but the strength of feeling demonstrated cannot be ignored by Spain, it said. Matt Carthy, European lawmaker for Irish nationalists Sinn Fein whose aim is to unite British-run Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic, called the EU a shower of utter hypocrites. The EU has ignored a vicious assault on EU citizens in Catalonia because they had the audacity to vote, he told fellow European lawmakers in an emotionally-charged speech. We are told the EU stands for peace, democracy and human rights. Where were those values on Sunday? Opinion polls conducted before the Catalan vote suggested a minority of around 40 percent of Catalans backed independence, but a majority wanted a referendum to be held. Catalan officials released preliminary referendum results showing 90 percent support in favor of breaking away, but turnout was 43 percent and low among those who favor remaining part of Spain mainly boycotted the ballot. Spain s constitution determines that the majority which counts is Spain as a whole, not Catalonia s 5.3 million voters. Ireland s prime minister Leo Varadkar has said his government respects Spain s constitution but he also described the violence as disproportionate and counterproductive. Spain s deputy prime minister and European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans have said the use of force was proportionate . Turkey, which condemned last week s referendum for Kurdish independence in northern Iraq, also spoke of the importance of respecting Spanish law and territorial integrity. We believe that Spain ( ) will overcome such challenges and establish a national dialogue environment through a democratic approach, Turkey s foreign ministry said. In Serbia, officials accused the EU of double standards by refusing to recognize Catalonia s vote and at the same time supporting the independence of Serbia s former province Kosovo. Another would-be breakaway group, the Movement for the Autonomy of Slask (RAS) which wants autonomy for Poland s Slask region, said that events in Spain were proof of the temptation to use repression to control political dissent. The European community should work out rules and procedures for solving similar conflicts, it said. Its indifference with respect to the forceful repression of aspirations of Catalan people for self-rule will be interpreted as a sign of weakness and will deepen the confidence crisis that many Europeans feel toward EU institutions. | Catalan standoff touches separatist hearts beyond Spain |
JACKSONVILLE, Fla (Reuters) - When U.S. manufacturing employment peaked, Jimmy Carter was president, inflation was 11 percent, and craftsmen at Frontier Contact Lenses made the company’s products one at a time on diamond-tipped lathes. As presidential candidates promise to reclaim jobs lost in the intervening decades, they might want to visit the company now. Bought by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) in 1981, the fully automated factory allows four workers to produce in a 12-hour shift what more labor-intensive methods produced in a year. The Jacksonville plant and one in Ireland make 4 billion soft contacts a year, and between the robots and lasers and computer algorithms no worker touches the product from the start of the process through final packaging. “I don’t think you could even make 4 billion lenses” using the old method, said David Turner, vice president of research and development for Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. “You’d need a guy with a lathe in every town.” Since peaking at 19.5 million in 1979, the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs has fallen 37 percent to around 12.2 million as of March, or just over 10 percent of the private sector workforce. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/1WqpioK) That may be as good as it gets. Despite the promises made on the campaign trail by Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and other candidates, the next president will find it hard to raise manufacturing’s share of a U.S. labor force that keeps shifting toward services. While much of the jobs debate has centered on trade pacts that Democrats and Republicans have backed over the last quarter century, both successful and struggling companies and sectors offer evidence of long-term trends that neither sharp trade negotiators nor aggressive political leaders can easily reverse. Even critics of trade deals acknowledge that labor intensive industries, such as textiles, which once employed hundreds of thousands of less-skilled workers, are probably gone for good. Technology continues to diminish the share of labor in production and its spread around the world has made other nations - notably China, but also Korea, Brazil, Mexico and former Soviet bloc countries - competitive both as exporters and in their own markets. Investment worldwide is drifting steadily toward services, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and Americans are spending relatively less of their income on manufactured goods. A Reuters analysis of federal data for 1,267 categories of goods shows that the United States has been running a trade deficit in more than 500 of them since at least 1992 - before the North American Free Trade Agreement came into force or China joined the World Trade Organization, events often cited as turning points for U.S. manufacturing. Since the 2007-2009 recession manufacturing has added about 800,000 jobs, but that has lagged overall job growth. As a result manufacturing’s share of private employment has continued to fall, from about 11 percent since the recession ended. “The move toward a more global market hurts the marginal, low-skilled worker, but it was inevitable and you cannot roll it back,” said Brookings Institution senior fellow Barry Bosworth. At CareerSource Northeast Florida, a job development group, President Bruce Ferguson, Jr. said by necessity he focused on finding a “path” for entry level service sector employees to move up a career ladder, because services are where the growth is. “The raw (manufacturing) numbers don’t look anything like the service sector and they never will,” he said. A majority of 6,500 Americans surveyed in March as part of Reuters/Ipsos 2016 campaign polling acknowledged that free trade brings lower prices, but also saw it as a drag on wages and jobs and an “important” issue for the next president to confront. Tapping such concerns, Trump has promised punitive tariffs to “bring back” jobs for those left behind in the current recovery, particularly the roughly two thirds of Americans without a college degree. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton switched gears as a candidate to oppose a major Pacific trade deal and promises billions in public support for manufacturing. Her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders calls for worker protection against what he considers unfair trade, while Republican Ted Cruz has focused on trimming government red tape. However, playing tough on trade carries some risks and there are limits to what trade talks and tariffs can accomplish. The U.S. steel industry is a case in point. The American Iron and Steel Institute estimates around 12,000 jobs were lost to a recent jump in imports, mainly from China. It reckons those jobs could be recovered with steps, such as the anti-dumping duties imposed by Washington late last year. That pales, however, in comparison with more than 200,000 jobs that the sector has lost since the early 1980s, some because of imports, but some because the amount of labor needed to produce a ton of steel has fallen from 10 hours to less than two. “There has been a short term loss that is definitely attributable to imports, while a longer term trend reflects technological innovation,” said Kevin Dempsey, the institute’s senior vice president. Such dynamic is not limited to old industries like steel. Florida is home to successful manufacturers big and small in a wide range of sectors, which export nearly half of their output - double the national average. Yet, as is the case nationally, the share of jobs available to those with a high school degree has been shrinking since 2000, according to federal data, and wages have been stagnant. Johnson & Johnson Vision Care’s recent approval of a $300 million expansion, which added some 100 jobs, cements the company’s U.S. presence, but also shows how technology and innovation reshape the landscape. The company’s local workforce has risen to around 1,700, but about 60 percent of that are white collar and non-manufacturing jobs - from research positions for PhD scientists to those in sales and a highly automated shipping operation. Florida development officials say the trend is clear: manufacturers keep cutting the labor content of their products and each round of investment tends to drive up the skill levels that workers need. That may benefit the state’s economy, but acts as a reality check for workers who hope that the November 8 presidential vote can reverse decades-old trends. “How do you evaluate a company that says we will spend a lot of money and make the workforce more qualified but not create many jobs?” said Aaron Bowman, senior vice president for business development at JAXUSA Partnership, a regional economic development agency and division of the local chamber of commerce. “Over time you see more projects that bring in fewer jobs but a bigger bang.” | Trump's jobs homecoming a long shot even in manufacturing hot spots |
SAN DIEGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday said he was leaning toward approving a $25 million settlement of fraud claims against President Donald Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars but deferred a final decision to a later date. At a hearing in San Diego, Judge Gonzalo Curiel noted that, under the class action settlement, former Trump University students were expected to recover 80 percent of the money they spent on courses and mentoring programs. “That is an extraordinary amount,” the judge said, noting the recovery rate in similar lawsuits is usually closer to between 11 and 20 percent. He did not specify when he would rule. A Florida woman objected to the settlement, saying she should have the opportunity to opt out and take Trump to court herself. Patrick Coughlin, a class action lawyer for the students, said the students would actually receive over 90 percent of their money back. Some 3,730 students submitted claim forms in the class action that dates to 2010, according to court papers. The students, who paid as much as $35,000 for the seminars, claimed they were lured by false promises that they would learn Trump’s investing “secrets” from his “hand-picked” instructors. Trump vowed to continue fighting the fraud claims during the presidential election campaign but agreed to the settlement soon after. He has admitted he did not personally select the instructors, but his lawyers have described the claim as mere sales “puffery.” Trump accused Curiel of bias last year based on the Indiana-born judge’s Mexican ancestry. Sherri Simpson, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who paid $19,000, objected to the settlement provision blocking students from opting out of the deal. She has said in court papers she would like to seek full recovery from Trump, plus punitive damages and other relief. Gary Friedman, a lawyer for Simpson, argued in court the notices were defective. Curiel questioned Friedman and said he would consider the objection. | U.S. judge views $25 million Trump University settlement favorably |
PARIS (Reuters) - France will not recognize Catalonia if the Spanish region unilaterally declares independence, European affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau said on Monday. If there were to be a declaration of independence, it would be unilateral, and it would not be recognized, Loiseau said on CNews television. Catalonia, which has its own language and culture and is led by a pro-independence regional government, held a referendum on Oct. 1 over secession in defiance of Spain s constitutional court, which had declared the vote illegal. Catalonia cannot be defined by the vote organized by the independence movement just over a week ago, the French junior minister said. This crisis needs to be resolved through dialogue at all levels of Spanish politics. A hasty decision to recognize independence following such a unilateral declaration would amount to fleeing France s responsibilities, Loiseau added. If independence were to be recognized - which is not something that s being discussed - the most immediate consequence would be that (Catalonia) automatically left the European Union. | France would not recognize unilateral Catalan declaration: minister |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Any U.S. decision to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons would set back peace efforts and escalate tensions, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. The Kremlin was referring to an interview given by U.S. special envoy on Ukraine, Kurt Volker, to Britain’s broadcaster BBC, in which he said that Washington was actively reviewing whether to send weapons to help those fighting against Russian-backed rebels. The Kremlin said a possible delivery of U.S. weapons to Ukraine could destabilize the situation along the frontline in the east of the country. “We have already said more than once that any action which escalates tension ... and further aggravates the already complicated situation will only move us further and further away from the moment of settling this internal issue of Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters. | Kremlin: U.S. arms supplies to Ukraine would set back peace efforts |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Republicans took important steps on Thursday toward the biggest U.S. tax-code overhaul since the 1980s, with the House of Representatives approving a broad package of tax cuts, and a Senate panel advancing its own version of the legislation sought by senior lawmakers and President Donald Trump. The House vote shifted the tax debate to the Senate, where a tax-writing panel finished debating and approved a bill late Thursday evening. That measure has already encountered resistance from some within the Republicans ranks. Full Senate action is expected after next week’s Thanksgiving holiday. Four Republican senators - enough to derail the legislation - have been talking privately about opposing the bill because it would balloon the federal deficit, according to a Time magazine report. Trump, who is still seeking his first major legislative win since taking office in January, went to the U.S. Capitol just before the House vote to urge Republicans to pass the tax bill, which Democrats call a giveaway to the wealthy and businesses. “A simple, fair and competitive tax code will be rocket fuel for our economy, and it’s within our reach. Now is the time to deliver,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said after the largely party-line House vote of 227-205. Congress has not thoroughly overhauled the sprawling U.S. tax code since Republican Ronald Reagan was president. The House measure is not as comprehensive as Reagan’s 1986 package, but it is more ambitious than anything since then. The path forward for the tax plan in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority, is fraught with obstacles about concerns over the deficit, healthcare and the distribution of tax benefits. Republicans can lose no more than two Senate votes if Democrats remain united in opposition. Senate Republican tax-writers earlier this week made the risky decision of tying their plan to a repeal of the requirement for people to get healthcare insurance under former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. That exposed the tax initiative to the same political forces that wrecked Republicans’ anti-Obamacare push earlier in July. The House bill, estimated to increase the federal deficit by nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years, would consolidate individual and family tax brackets to four from seven and reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. It also would scale back or end some popular tax deductions, including one for state and local income taxes, while preserving a capped deduction for property tax payments. Democrats have pointed to analyses showing millions of Americans could end up with a tax hike because of eliminated deductions. Repealing or shrinking some deductions is a way to offset the revenue lost from tax cuts. “It’s a shameful piece of legislation, and the Republicans should know better,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers before the vote. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned Republicans that by increasing the deficit, the tax bill would imperil other important priorities such as military spending. Thirteen House Republicans opposed the bill, all but one from New York, New Jersey or California - states with high taxes where residents would feel the pinch from eliminating the deduction for state and local income taxes. “This fight is not over. I look forward to continuing negotiations to improve this proposal for my constituents,” said Republican Representative Lee Zeldin of New York, who voted against the bill. Investors have cheered the prospect of a tax overhaul. U.S. stocks rose and the dollar edged higher against a basket of major currencies on Thursday after the House vote. Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago, said stocks’ strong gains on the day were helped by the House vote. “It’s helping stocks now and the bond market’s turned around,” he said. “The tax plan isn’t a foregone conclusion, but it passed the lowest hurdle in the House. The even higher hurdle is to have something pass in the Senate.” Republicans have long promised tax cuts and see enacting them as critical to their prospects of retaining power in Washington in the November 2018 congressional elections, particularly after failing to meet their promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. But it will be a challenge in the 100-seat Senate, where Republicans have only a 52-48 majority. Senators Jeff Flake and James Lankford are among the four Republicans considering opposing the plan, Time reported. A Lankford spokesman said he was “eager to work with colleagues to pass tax reform.” Flake, who often clashes with Trump and has announced he will not seek re-election next year, told Reuters on Thursday he was “more worried about the fiscal problem” than other issues. Several other senators, including Ron Johnson and Susan Collins, who helped sink the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, have expressed concerns. Johnson announced his opposition because of what he said were unequal rates for small businesses and non-corporate enterprises known as “pass-throughs,” versus corporations. He is working with the White House to fix the issue, he told Reuters. Senator John McCain, a Republican who also voted against the healthcare overhaul effort this summer, and his colleagues Bob Corker and Lisa Murkowski, are also considered critical votes. Nonpartisan congressional analysts say the provision to repeal the health insurance mandate in the Senate version would drive up premium costs and cause some 13 million Americans to lose coverage. The Senate plan also sets individual tax rate cuts to expire while reductions for corporations are permanent. If the full Senate approves its measure, it will have to be reconciled with the House version before legislation can be sent to Trump’s desk for his signature. Republican Representative Tom Cole said that should not be a problem. “There’s no issue here that can’t be ironed out and settled between us,” Cole told reporters. | Tax overhaul drama moves to Senate as House approves its bill |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Wednesday made its final plea to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow its proposed ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries to go into effect as the justices weigh how to handle the hotly contested dispute. The court papers filed by President Donald Trump’s administration complete the briefing on the government’s emergency application asking the justices to block lower court injunctions in favor of challengers to the ban. The Supreme Court could now act at any time. The lower court rulings blocked the 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugees entering the United States to give the government time to implement stronger vetting procedures. In the court papers, Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall said the lower courts had wrongly second-guessed the president on national security policy when reviewing the March 6 executive order. “The president expressly determined that the order’s provisions are needed to promote national security, but the lower courts here ... nullified that judgment,” he wrote. In court papers filed on Tuesday, lawyers for the state of Hawaii and individual plaintiffs in Maryland urged the high court not to allow the ban go into effect. | Trump lawyers make final Supreme Court pitch on travel ban test |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s ruling bloc could come close to keeping its two-thirds super majority in an Oct. 22 lower house election, defying some predictions of substantial losses and solidifying his grip on power, a survey published by the Nikkei business daily on Wednesday showed. Abe s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its more dovish junior partner, the Komeito, are likely to secure more than 290 seats in the 465-seat chamber, the Nikkei said. The ruling bloc had a two-thirds super majority in the lower house before the chamber was dissolved. The number of seats has been cut from 475 as part of electoral reforms. The Nikkei forecast was broadly in line with a Kyodo news agency forecast released on Thursday that saw Abe s coalition winning more than 300 seats. However, Kyodo said 54.4 percent of voters were still undecided. A survey by the Yomiuri newspaper showed the LDP and Komeito winning close to 300 seats. A strong showing by Abe s coalition would boost his chances of winning a third term as LDP leader from next September, putting him on track to become Japan s longest-serving premier. Abe called the snap election amid confusion in the opposition camp and after an uptick in his ratings, which had been hurt earlier this year by suspected cronyism scandals, in hopes of gaining a fresh mandate after nearly five years in power. But the outlook has been clouded by the emergence of popular Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike s Party of Hope, a fledgling party that the former LDP lawmaker and defense minister calls a reformist, conservative alternative to Abe s LDP. The Nikkei said Koike s party was on track to get around 69 seats, with a forecast range of 46-110. Another new party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, formed from the liberal wing of the failed opposition Democratic Party, was set to win more than 40 seats, it said. The Democrats, faced with rock-bottom ratings and internal dissension, have said they would run no candidates of their own, freeing many to run on the Party of Hope ticket. PRO-CONSTITUTION REVISION FORCES The Asahi newspaper also forecast a strong showing by the ruling bloc, with the LDP set to win well over the 233 seats needed to have a simple majority on its own. It said Koike s Party of Hope was struggling but was likely to get more than 57 seats. About 40 percent of voters were undecided, the Asahi said. The Nikkei also forecast that parties in favor of revising the post-war, pacifist constitution - Abe s long-held goal - were on track to win more than two-thirds. That includes the LDP and Koike s Party of Hope as well as another smaller right-leaning party, the Japan Innovation Party. Amending the constitution, a politically controversial move never yet taken, requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers and a majority in a public referendum. Koike s party had raised expectations that it would cut into the LDP s conservative base. But her decision not to run for a lower house seat herself and refusal to say whom her party would support for premier after the election appears to have eroded the party s momentum. Competition among a fragmented opposition, which also includes the Japanese Communist Party, in many districts means the anti-LDP vote could be split, a plus for Abe s party. Abe has led the LDP to four landslide wins since he took the helm of the party in 2012, but turnout has been low and the LDP has typically won with about 25 percent of eligible votes. The others either stayed home or backed opposition parties. The premier has been touting the success of his Abenomics recipe of hyper-easy monetary policy, fiscal spending and promised structural reforms, while Koike argues that reforms have been too slow in a fast-changing global economy. The world s third-largest economy is on track for its longest expansion since World War Two, and the jobless rate was at a 23-year low of 2.8 percent in August while wages are starting to rise a bit. But Abe s reflationary policies have not yet sparked a sustainable recovery led by the private sector. | Japan PM's ruling bloc seen nearing 2/3 majority in Oct. 22 lower house poll: Nikkei |
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish cargo ship with 10 crew on board sank in the Black Sea near the Asian side of Istanbul early on Wednesday morning, according to the coast guard. The cause was still unclear. The ship, Bilal Bal, was carrying cast iron from Turkey s northwestern province of Bursa to the northern province of Zonguldak, the Dogan news agency reported. Unfortunately, one of our cargo ships sank in ... the Black Sea, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. Search and rescue operations were continuing, he said. Three boats, one helicopter and one plane belonging to the coast guard were conducting search and rescue operations, according the coast guard. Empty lifeboats had been found as well as some life jackets, the coast guard said. Five boats more were deployed to aid in the operations, as well as a remotely operated underwater vehicle from the Turkish naval forces, it said. | Cargo ship with 10 crew sinks in Black Sea, coast guard reports |
PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he had a good conversation with President Barack Obama on Wednesday, after earlier tweeting that the transition was not going smoothly. “He called me. We had a very, very good talk ... generally about things. ... was a very, very nice call, and I actually thought we covered a lot of territory,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “Our staffs are getting along very well and I’m getting along very well” with him, Trump said. Earlier on Wednesday, Trump tweeted: “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!” | Trump says he had a 'very good talk' with Obama on Wednesday xxxx |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security terminated a program on Wednesday that allowed minors fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to settle in the United States, ending travel hopes for more than 2,700 children awaiting approval. In a notice published in the Federal Register that goes into effect Aug. 16, the government said it was ending the practice of granting parole under the Central American Minors (CAM) Program, which was offered to children even if they had been denied refugee status. The program started at the end of 2014 under the administration of former President Barack Obama as a response to tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking entry into the United States. An executive order on border security signed by U.S. President Donald Trump days after he took office in January triggered a review of the program, putting on hold applications of more than 2,700 children who had been conditionally approved for entry into the United States. Now those applications will be canceled. The bulk of the children approved for the program were from El Salvador. Immigration advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) said that cancelling the program would lead to more children to try to find other means to enter the United States. “These children have been repeatedly told by the U.S. government, including the Trump Administration, not to migrate to the United States due to safety concerns,” the organization said in a statement. “Now this Administration is cutting off the only authorized channel and leaving children no choice but to make the perilous journey to the United States.” The program allowed children under 21 years old with parents lawfully living in the United States to apply for a refugee resettlement interview before making the journey to the United States. As of August 4, more than 1,500 children and eligible family members had arrived in the United States as refugees under the CAM program, according to the State Department. Children who did not qualify for refugee status and had no other means of reuniting with their parents in the United States could also apply for entry under the program. They would be approved for parole for two years, allowing them to travel and stay in the United States and apply for work permits. Since its inception, more than 1,400 children were granted parole and allowed to travel to the United States. They included 1,110 from El Salvador, 324 from Honduras and 31 from Guatemala, according to a spokesman from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Now, they will have to re-apply for parole once their two-year term expires but will only be able to have it renewed if they can demonstrate “an urgent humanitarian or a significant public benefit reason” for them to stay, the federal register said. Parole decisions would be determined on a case-by-case basis. More than 13,000 people have applied for the program since it began, the State Department said. Around 1 percent of applicants were denied both for refugee status and parole, according to the USCIS spokesman. The refugee portion of the program will not be affected by Wednesday’s termination and children stranded abroad can still apply as refugees. | U.S. ends program for Central American minors fleeing violence |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump took Republican Senator Bob Corker to task on Twitter on Friday, apparently responding to the Foreign Relations Committee chair’s comment that Trump did not understand the nation’s character and had not demonstrated competence. “Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in ‘18. Tennessee not happy!” Trump wrote of the Tennessee senator. Responding to Trump’s comments about violence at a neo-Nazi and white supremacist protest earlier this month, Corker recently said, “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence, that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.” | Trump says criticism of him by Republican Senator Corker 'strange' |
ROME (Reuters) - International humanitarian group Save the Children said on Monday it had suspended migrant rescues in the Mediterranean Sea as departures from Libya slow and security conditions worsen. Save the Children has operated a ship, the Vos Hestia, since September last year, rescuing more than 10,000 migrants from dangerous and overcrowded boats launched by people smugglers. For too long we have been the substitution for the inexistent and inadequate European policies for search and rescue and for hosting migrants, Save the Children Director General Valerio Neri said in a statement. Italian police searched the Vos Hestia on Monday as part of a wider investigation into the role non-government organizations are playing in picking up migrants off the Libya coast and bringing them to Italy. Save the Children said its decision to halt rescues was already planned before the police search. Earlier this year, the government asked humanitarian groups to sign a code of conduct . The government said the rescuers were providing an incentive for smugglers to put migrants to sea. Police in August seized a migrant rescue boat operated by a German aid group Jugend Rettet. The chief prosecutor in the Sicilian city of Trapani said he had evidence of encounters between traffickers, who escorted illegal immigrants to the NGO boat, and members of its crew. Jugend Rettet denied any wrongdoing. Save the Children said in a statement it was not under investigation and was cooperating with authorities. The documents seized by police on Monday concerned presumed illegal actions committed by third persons , it said. Several months ago some 10 rescue ships took turns patrolling the North African coast, picking up migrants who reached international waters and bringing them to Italy. Now only one large ship and a few small ones remain, with many organizations including Doctors Without Borders pulling out for various reasons, including security concerns and unhappiness with the attitude of the Italian authorities. The Libyan Coast Guard, funded and trained by Italy, has taken a hostile stance toward the humanitarian boats in a series of incidents on the high seas. In August, a Libyan vessel intercepted a charity ship and ordered it to sail to Tripoli or risk being fired on. Departures from Libya have fallen dramatically since July, when an armed group that had been deeply involved in smuggling from the city of Sabratha began blocking departures. So far in October sea arrivals to Italy are down more than 75 percent compared with the same month last year. | Save the Children suspends migrant rescues in Mediterranean |
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomb attack in the Afghan capital near a meeting of supporters of an influential regional leader on Thursday killed at least nine people and wounded many, the interior ministry said. Islamic State claimed responsibility, according to Amaq, its official news agency. The Taliban denied involvement. Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of the northern province of Balkh and a leader of the mainly ethnic Tajik Jamiat-i-Islami party, was not at the meeting at the time of the attack, members of the party said. Political tensions are rising as politicians have begun jockeying for position ahead of presidential elections expected in 2019 and thousands of civilians have been killed in attacks this year. The bomber approached the hotel hosting the gathering on foot but was spotted by a police official, Sayed Basam Padshah, as he neared a security checkpoint, an interior ministry spokesman said. The attacker triggered his explosives vest before he could get any further, Kabul police chief Basir Mujahid told Reuters. Padshah was among the seven policemen and two civilians killed. He saved many lives by sacrificing his life, Mujahid said. The northern-based Jamiat-i-Islami was for years the main opponent of the Taliban, who draw their support largely from the southern-based ethnic Pashtun community. A witness to Thursday s bombing said: We are proud to be martyred because of our country and our rights. This gathering was for the sake of our country to raise our voice. In June, a suicide bomber attacked a meeting of Jamiat-i-Islami leaders, including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. Abdullah, who is supported by ethnic minority leaders including Noor who fought against the Taliban s hard-line Islamist regime in the 1990s, formed a coalition government with President Ashraf Ghani after a disputed 2014 presidential election. Ghani on Wednesday sacked the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, raising doubts over whether parliamentary and council ballots scheduled for next year will take place as planned. | Suicide bomber kills nine near Afghan political meeting |
OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday he doubted whether Donald Trump could undo much of the current administration’s record on the environment because so many green policies have firmly taken hold. Trump, who will take over as president on Jan. 20, has said he does not believe in global warming and will name a climate change skeptic, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The Republican is expected to nominate another climate change skeptic, U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, to head the Interior Department, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday. Democratic President Barack Obama has made the fight against global warming a priority, and Biden said businesses now realized his policies made sense economically. “There is a constituency that crosses party lines. Regardless of whether the next administration is as aggressive as we have been - and I’m not suggesting they intend to - there is no way to turn back this tide that has begun to roll,” the vice president told a Canadian environmental summit. The Obama administration has lifted vehicle fuel standards, invested heavily in renewable energy, pushed to curb methane gas emissions and adopted a Clean Power Plan that requires states to cut carbon output. Biden said that in some parts of the United States it was now cheaper to use solar or wind power rather than rely on power stations fueled by coal or gas. Company executives were starting to price in carbon emissions reduction while motorists enjoyed not having to refuel their vehicles as often, he said. “Reality has a way of intruding,” he said. “Whatever uncertainly exists around the near-term policy choices of the next president, I am absolutely confident the United States will continue making progress on this path to a low-carbon future.” “And that’s because many of the trends I’ve mentioned have taken hold and are no longer dependent on government initiatives. They are market-driven, they are common sense.” Trump has vowed that within his first 100 days in office he will rescind the Clean Power Plan, eliminate “unwarranted restrictions” on hydraulic fracturing oil-drilling technology, cut “outdated” regulations, and pull the country out of a global pact to curb warming of the planet. Biden said, “One of the things the president and I are proudest of accomplishing over the last eight years is debunking the myth that America can’t grow our economy and bring down emissions at the same time.”. Among those in the audience for Biden’s remarks was Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is also taking an aggressive stance on climate change. | Biden does not see Trump undoing much of environmental record |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to China promised on Tuesday to take a firm line with Beijing on issues from North Korea to trade disputes and human rights, and seemed poised for an easy confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad said he would use his decades of experience with China to press Beijing to do more to encourage North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions. “There’s other things they can do diplomatically and economically to send a clear signal that they, as well as the United States and other countries in the world, do not tolerate this expansion of nuclear technology and missiles,” Branstad said at his confirmation hearing. Pressed, Branstad said “there may well be” a role for measures such as imposing secondary sanctions on Chinese banks or other entities that violated U.N. Security Council resolutions by doing business with North Korea. He offered few specifics. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated that China was serious about enforcing U.N. resolutions and, referring to the possibility of secondary U.S. sanctions, said China opposed other countries using their law to sanction others or to harm Chinese interests. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called Branstad, 70, an “old friend” after decades of dealings on agricultural trade. But the Republican governor insisted he would take on difficult issues complicating Washington’s relationship with its largest trading partner and major creditor. That would contrast with Trump’s recent warm words for Xi, which have caused some U.S. allies to wonder if Trump’s focus on working with China on North Korea means Washington may not still have their backs. “The fact that the leader of China calls us an old friend, doesn’t mean that I’m going to be at all reluctant or bashful of bringing up issues ... be it human rights or intellectual property rights,” Branstad told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Committee members expressed few concerns about Branstad, signaling he likely will be confirmed easily. They had tough words for China. Senator Bob Corker, the panel’s Republican chairman, blasted China’s actions in the South China Sea, and “cyber theft of intellectual property.” He warned against focusing on short-term goals at the expense of long-term U.S. interests. “There’s no country in the world that we have so many issues with,” Corker said. Branstad took a hard line on the South China Sea, saying, “China cannot be allowed to use its artificial islands to coerce its neighbors or limit freedom of navigation or overflight.” Trump has taken an “America First” approach to trade. Branstad also stressed the importance of opening markets to agricultural goods, protecting intellectual property and addressing China’s “unfair and illegal” sales of low-priced steel. | Trump nominee for China ambassador promises firm line on Beijing |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon s Saad al-Hariri on Wednesday shelved his decision to resign as prime minister at the request of President Michel Aoun, easing a crisis that had deepened tensions in the Middle East. Hariri made his announcement after returning to Beirut for the first time since he quit abruptly on Nov. 4 in a broadcast from Saudi Arabia. Top Lebanese officials have said Riyadh forced him to quit and held him in the kingdom. Riyadh and Hariri deny this. At the presidential palace near Beirut, Hariri said he hoped his move would lead to a responsible dialogue...that deals with divisive issues and their repercussions on Lebanon s relations with Arab brothers. Hariri said all Lebanese sides must commit to keeping the country out of regional conflicts, a reference to the Iran-backed Hezbollah political and military movement. Hezbollah s regional military role has greatly alarmed Saudi Arabia, Hariri s long-time ally. I presented today my resignation to President Aoun and he urged me to wait before offering it and to hold onto it for more dialogue about its reasons and political background, and I showed responsiveness, he said in a televised statement. The resignation had shocked even Hariri s aides. He returned to Lebanon late on Tuesday night after French intervention. Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, had refused to accept the resignation because it happened in mysterious circumstances abroad. He had called Hariri a hostage in Riyadh. Hariri appeared to express relief that Aoun had not accepted the resignation right away. He thanked Aoun on Wednesday for respecting constitutional norms and his rejection of departing from them under any circumstances . The resignation pitched Lebanon to the forefront of the regional rivalry between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Islamist Iran, which backs Lebanon s Hezbollah, and raised concerns of a protracted crisis. In his resignation speech, Hariri had cited fear of assassination, and attacked Iran along with Hezbollah for sowing strife in the Arab world. Hundreds of Hariri supporters packed the streets near his house in central Beirut, waving the blue flag of his Future Movement political party. The Sunni leader told them he would stay with (them)... to be a line of defense for Lebanon, Lebanon s stability and Lebanon s Arabism . His presence in the country alone brings stability, said Manar Akoum, 26, as she stood with the celebrating crowd. Hariri s resignation was followed by a steep escalation in Saudi statements against the Lebanese government, which includes Shi ite Hezbollah. Riyadh said the government as a whole - not just Hezbollah - had declared war against it. Western governments including the United States struck a different tone, affirming their support for Hariri and the stability of Lebanon, which hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees - nearly one-in-four of the population. Ahead of his return to Beirut, Hariri had stressed the importance of the Lebanese state policy of staying out of regional conflicts, notably Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is battling Iran-backed Houthi fighters. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who had also called for Hariri s return, said on Monday his group was open to any dialogue and any discussion . Nasrallah also issued his clearest denial yet of any Hezbollah role in Yemen. A senior source in a political alliance that includes Hezbollah said Hariri s move on Wednesday would start a breakthrough in the crisis. This step is not detached from the framework of a complete solution whose features will appear in the coming days, the source told Reuters. Lebanese dollar bonds, which had fallen in response to Hariri s resignation, gained following Wednesday s announcement. A government minister from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a close ally of Saudi Arabia, said Lebanon must implement its policy of keeping out of Middle East conflicts in order to get out of its own crisis as well as regional troubles. The main problem facing that is the selective implementation of (this) principle and the functional Iranian role of Hezbollah outside the Lebanese framework, Anwar Gargash, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote on Twitter. Cyprus, where Hariri had briefly stopped on his journey home, said it would attempt to help defuse the crisis. Our common objective is stability in Lebanon, stability in our area. Within this context... the President of the Republic will undertake some initiatives precisely to promote this objective; stability in Lebanon, Cypriot government spokesman Nikos Christodoulides said. Hariri took office last year in a power-sharing deal that made Aoun head of state. He arrived in Beirut in time for independence day celebrations on Wednesday morning, taking the premier s seat alongside Aoun and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Hariri said he looked forward to real partnership with all the political powers, in placing Lebanon s interests high above any other interests and preserving coexistence among Lebanese. | Lebanon's PM Hariri shelves resignation, easing crisis added |
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico central bank governor Agustin Carstens said on Friday he is “implicitly” factoring in the possibility of Republican hopeful Donald Trump becoming U.S. president in the bank’s economic risk models. In an interview with El Financiero/Bloomberg Carstens was asked whether the chances of Trump, a persistent critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement, becoming the next president of the United States was in the central bank’s risk models. “Well, explicitly, no,” Carstens said. “But implicitly all of us have it in our heads, this possibility.” Carstens was also asked about Mexican monetary policy in the coming months after the bank launched a surprise rate hike on Feb. 17 to shore up the peso currency, which had been falling sharply against the dollar since the end of 2014. He reiterated that the February move was not the start of a monetary policy tightening cycle, but that the bank would be following moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve closely. “Our monetary policy will above all be led by ... the exchange rate, the monetary policy relative to the United States and the inflationary pressures that could occur due to the economic cycle in Mexico,” the central bank governor said. Trump, front-runner to win the Republican presidential nomination for the Nov. 8 election, sparked outrage in Mexico with campaign vows to slap tariffs on Mexican exports and to build a southern border wall and make Mexico pay for it. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said this month his country would not pay for Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and likened his “strident tone” to the ascent of dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Dave Graham; Editing by Richard Chang and Sam Holmes) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | edededex |
DORAL, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Democrat Hillary Clinton’s plan for Syria would “lead to World War Three,” because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia. In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, Trump said defeating Islamic State is a higher priority than persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, playing down a long-held goal of U.S. policy. Trump questioned how Clinton would negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin after demonizing him; blamed President Barack Obama for a downturn in U.S. relations with the Philippines under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte; bemoaned a lack of Republican unity behind his candidacy, and said he would easily win the election if the party leaders would support him. “If we had party unity, we couldn’t lose this election to Hillary Clinton,” he said. On Syria’s civil war, Trump said Clinton could drag the United States into a world war with a more aggressive posture toward resolving the conflict. Clinton has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone and “safe zones” on the ground to protect non-combatants. Some analysts fear that protecting those zones could bring the United States into direct conflict with Russian fighter jets. “What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria,” said Trump as he dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. “You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton. “You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,” he said. Clinton’s campaign dismissed the criticism, noting that both Republican and Democratic national security experts have denounced Trump as unfit to be commander-in-chief. “Once again, he is parroting Putin’s talking points and playing to Americans’ fears, all while refusing to lay out any plans of his own for defeating ISIS or alleviating humanitarian suffering in Syria,” Clinton spokesman Jesse Lehrich said in a statement. Trump said Assad is much stronger now than he was three years ago and said getting Assad to leave power was less important than defeating Islamic State. “Assad is secondary, to me, to ISIS,” he said. On Russia, Trump again knocked Clinton’s handling of U.S.-Russian relations while secretary of state and said her harsh criticism of Putin raised questions about “how she is going to go back and negotiate with this man who she has made to be so evil,” if she wins the presidency. On the deterioration of ties with the Philippines, Trump aimed his criticism at Obama, saying the president “wants to focus on his golf game” rather than engage with world leaders. Since assuming office, Duterte has expressed open hostility toward the United States, rejecting criticism of his violent anti-drug clampdown, using an expletive to describe Obama and telling the United States not to treat his country “like a dog with a leash.” The Obama administration has expressed optimism that the two countries can remain firm allies. Trump said Duterte’s latest comments showed “a lack of respect for our country.” The interview comes two weeks before the Nov. 8 election, with Trump trailing badly in the polls. He repeated his assertion that the “media is rigging the polls” and said his supporters were upset with Republican Party leadership. “The people are very angry with the leadership of this party, because this is an election that we will win 100 percent if we had support from the top. I think we’re going to win it anyway.” He said if he wins he would not consider putting Democrats in his cabinet but would work with them on legislation. READ MORE: Commentary: How Clinton could lose even as she wins | Exclusive: Trump says Clinton policy on Syria would lead to World War Three |
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday she would continue to govern in the interests of all Northern Ireland and uphold the agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence in the province. The statement comes as an impasse over the future of the Irish border once Britain leaves the European Union looked to have been resolved. This Government will continue to govern in the interests of the whole community in Northern Ireland and uphold the Agreements that have underpinned the huge progress that has been made over the past two decades, a statement published on the government s website said. | UK PM May promises to uphold N. Ireland peace process as Brexit impasse ends |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Urged on by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, Republican lawmakers rushing to scrap Obamacare said this week they hoped to make some changes intended to stabilize the insurance market while they work at repealing and replacing the law. The beginnings of a framework outlining what a post-Obamacare world could look like came in the same week that Congress approved a resolution instructing key committees of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to draft Obamacare repeal legislation by a target date of Jan. 27. The fate of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, is a high-stakes political showdown between Republicans and Democrats that potentially jeopardizes medical coverage for millions of Americans and risks causing chaos in the health insurance marketplace. The seven-year-old law has enabled up to 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain health coverage and helped slow the rise in healthcare spending. But Republicans have called it federal government overreach. “If our general goal is to move decisions out of Washington back to the states, we should be able to make those decisions in the next several months,” a key Republican senator working on the repeal, Lamar Alexander, told reporters outside the Senate this week. In a speech on the Senate floor, Alexander indicated Republicans are eyeing some moves insurers have said would help shore up the insurance plans offered on the Obamacare exchanges. The changes could be done by law or by regulation, Alexander said. Alexander said he favors continuing, at least temporarily, the cost-sharing subsidies that millions of Americans receive with their Obamacare exchange-based plans - a kind of financial assistance that helps keep down the cost of deductibles and co-pays. He advocates adjusting the special enrollment periods that insurers say are sometimes abused by people who wait until they are sick to sign up for insurance. Insurers have long sought changes that would fix this facet of Obamacare to weed out misuse. It would also help the transition to a new system, Alexander said, if individuals could use government premium subsidies to buy plans outside of the Obamacare marketplace. Alexander is chairman of the Senate health committee, one of the committees drafting the repeal legislation. He told reporters he had discussed his ideas with a number of senators and the process was evolving, but stressed it should be gradual, with some changes made by lawmakers and some by the secretary of Health and Human Services after he is confirmed. Trump has nominated Republican Representative Tom Price for the job. “Certainty is something the insurance industry needs so they don’t abandon coverage,” said Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, another Republican lawmaker who has been working on how to stabilize insurance markets. It was unclear whether lawmakers will reach the ambitious target date of Jan. 27 for drafting repeal legislation. But House Speaker Paul Ryan said on CNN on Thursday that Republicans are moving “as quickly as they can”. The 2010 law, Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature piece of domestic policy, touches almost all parts of the U.S. healthcare system, making its replacement likely to take effect over a number of years, even if lawmakers are trying to draft changes in weeks or months. | U.S. Republicans start framework for Obamacare replacement |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican leaders of the Senate on Tuesday rebuffed President Barack Obama’s appeal for hearings and a vote on his U.S. Supreme Court nominee during a face-to-face meeting that failed to budge them from their vow to block any nominee he offers. Obama, planning to name a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia in the coming weeks, huddled with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley in the White House Oval Office for less than an hour. “Senator Grassley and I made it clear that we don’t intend to take up a nominee or to have a hearing,” McConnell told reporters after the meeting. The meeting failed to produce any progress on how to proceed with finding a replacement for Scalia, a long-serving conservative justice who died on Feb. 13. McConnell and Grassley are insistent that Obama not pick a nominee and leave the decision to his successor, who takes office next January after the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. Obama is insistent that it is the Republican-led Senate’s constitutional duty to act on his nominee. “They made clear in their meeting with the president that they’re not going to change their mind just because the president says so,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said of the Republicans. Earnest said Obama still believes it was worthwhile to consult with the lawmakers before making his nomination. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said Obama stated during the meeting he would be willing to consider candidates for the Supreme Court proposed by the Republicans, but McConnell and Grassley offered no names. “We killed a lot of time talking about basketball and other stuff,” said Reid, who attended along with the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Patrick Leahy. Under the Constitution, the president nominates Supreme Court justices and the Senate must confirm them. Without Scalia, the court has four conservative and four liberal justices, meaning any potential Obama nominee could tip the court to the left for the first time in decades. McConnell and Grassley have said allowing the next president to pick the new justice would let voters have a say in the selection when they elect a new president. “Whether everybody in the meeting today wanted to admit it, we all know that considering a nomination in the middle of a heated presidential campaign is bad for the nominee, bad for the court, bad for the process and ultimately bad for the nation,” Grassley said in a statement. | No breakthrough in Supreme Court dispute between Obama, Republicans |
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia does not believe that Iran is abiding by the 2015 nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and six world powers, the kingdom s foreign minister said on Wednesday, without elaborating. We expect the international community to do whatever it takes to ensure that Iran is in compliance, the minister, Adel al-Jubeir, told reporters at the United Nations. | Saudi Arabia does not believe Iran abiding by nuclear deal: minister |
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Two men were injured in a drive-by shooting at South Africa s Cape Town International Airport, police said on Wednesday. Operations at the airport, the second busiest in the country and a tourism hub, were not affected, police spokesman Vish Naidoo said, adding the motive for the shooting was unknown. The airport is Africa s third busiest and handles around 10 million passengers a year, including tourists and businesspeople commuting to the economic hub Johannesburg. A man, about 50 years of age, was shot in a drive-by shooting and in the process a bystander, a 30-year-old man, was also hit, Naidoo said. The shooting took place in the early morning in a public area some distance from the airport s security gates, Naidoo said. Flights had not been affected, the airport s general manager Deon Cloete said in a statement. The shooting scene has been cordoned off while investigations continue, Cloete said. Local media reported that the shooting was gang-related, but Naidoo could not confirm that was the motive. | Two injured in shooting at South Africa's Cape Town airport |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of a U.S. Senate cyber security subcommittee said on Friday he planned to introduce sanctions legislation over “Russia’s cyber criminals” after Washington accused Russia of political cyber attacks ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Republican Senator Cory Gardner said his legislation would require the Obama administration to investigate those who have engaged in significant actions undermining cyber security and aggressively pursue sanctions when appropriate. Gardner is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity. | U.S. lawmaker wants cyber sanctions on Russia after hacking charges |
DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is seeking international support for its plan to relocate Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar to a remote Bay of Bengal island that critics say is flood-prone and unlivable. More than 300,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from Buddhist-majority Myanmar since the latest violence began on Aug. 25, joining more than 400,000 others already living there in cramped makeshift camps. The United Nations top human rights official on Monday slammed Myanmar for conducting a cruel military operation against the Rohingya, branding it a textbook example of ethnic cleansing . This is creating a huge challenge for Bangladesh in terms of providing shelter as well as other humanitarian assistance to them, Bangladesh s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday as Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali held talks with diplomats. He urged the international community to push Myanmar to find a permanent solution to this crisis and sought support for transportation of the Rohingya to Bhashan Char , also known as Thengar Char. Bangladesh, one of the world s poorest and most crowded nations, plans to develop Thengar Char, which only emerged from the silt off Bangladesh s delta coast 11 years ago and is two hours by boat from the nearest settlement. It regularly floods during June-September monsoons and, when seas are calm, pirates roam the nearby waters to kidnap fishermen for ransom. The plan to develop the island and use it to house refugees was criticized by humanitarian workers when it was proposed in 2015 and revived last year. Bangladesh, though, insists it alone has the right to decide where to shelter the growing numbers of refugees. | Bangladesh seeks support to move fleeing Rohingya to remote, flood-prone island |
HAVANA/BOGOTA (Reuters) - Members of Colombia’s Marxist FARC guerrillas will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Cuba, a spokeswoman for Colombia’s government peace negotiators said on Sunday, adding a twist to a historic visit to the island by U.S. President Barack Obama. The meeting with Kerry on Monday will be the first time a U.S. secretary of state has met the negotiators from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who have been talking peace with the Colombian government in Havana for more than three years. “At around 4 p.m. (2000 GMT), the meeting between Kerry and the FARC delegation will take place,” after the Colombian government delegation meet him, the spokeswoman said. A source at Colombia’s Office of the High Commissioner for Peace said the rebels and Colombian government negotiators would also go to an exhibition game between Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba’s national team on Tuesday. That game will be attended by Obama, who on Sunday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years. But FARC negotiator Pastor Alape said he was not aware of an invitation to attend the baseball game. He said that before meeting with Kerry, the rebels would meet the U.S. special envoy for Colombian peace talks, Bernard Aronson, to agree on an agenda. The United States sees the Colombian peace talks hosted in Havana as an example of how restoring normal relations with Cuba can help its wider goals in Latin America. Latin America’s longest war has killed some 220,000 people and displaced millions of others since 1964. The government and rebels are attempting to reach a deal that would be placed before Colombian voters for approval, with a U.N. mission supervising rebel disarmament. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by the nom de guerre Timochenko, had set a self-imposed March 23 deadline to reach a comprehensive pact but have since conceded that goal may not be reached. Washington designated the FARC as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, and many of its leaders have been indicted in the United States on charges of cocaine trafficking. | Colombia's FARC rebels to meet Kerry in Cuba during Obama tripdsadsad |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran s military chief warned Israel against breaching Syrian airspace and territory on a visit to Damascus on Wednesday, raising tensions with Israel as it voices deep concern over Tehran s influence in Syria. General Mohammad Baqeri pledged to increase cooperation with Syria s military to fight Israel and insurgents, Iranian and Syrian state media said. Iranian forces and Iran-backed Shi ite militias, including Hezbollah, have provided critical military support to Damascus, helping it regain swathes of Syria from rebels and militants. It s not acceptable for the Zionist regime to violate the land and airspace of Syria anytime it wants, Baqeri said at a news conference with his Syrian counterpart. We are in Damascus to assert and cooperate to confront our common enemies, the Zionists and terrorists, he said, a reference to Israel and Sunni Muslim jihadists including Islamic State. We drew up the broad lines for this cooperation, Syrian state media cited the Iranian military chief of staff as saying. Iran s expanding clout during Syria s more than six-year war has raised alarm in Israel, which has said it would act against any threat from its regional arch-enemy Tehran. Israel s air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and Hezbollah nearly 100 times during the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Iran was strengthening its foothold in Syria and that Israel would do whatever it takes to protect its security. Tensions have risen this year between Lebanon s Hezbollah and Israel, which have avoided a major conflict since 2006. This week, the Israeli military said it attacked a Syrian anti-aircraft battery that had fired at its planes over Lebanon. But the Syrian army said it hit an Israeli warplane after it breached its airspace at the Syria-Lebanon border. [nL8N1MR2EX Our job is to prevent war, and you do that through deterrence. What we saw in Syria (on Monday) fell within this framework, the Israeli defense minister told Israel Radio on Wednesday before the Iranian military chief s comments. We will do whatever is necessary for (our) security, Avigdor Lieberman added. We will not change our operating procedures because of shooting or a threat of this type or another. | From Damascus, Iran vows to confront Israel |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed South Carolina congressman Mick Mulvaney to serve as White House budget director in a 51-49 vote that largely followed party lines. Underscoring the rocky reception that President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees have had on Capitol Hill, the vote came as Republican Senator John McCain opposed Mulvaney along with 46 Democrats and two independents. McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Wednesday he was concerned about Mulvaney’s opposition to defense spending. An outspoken budget hawk who has been branded by Democrats as a threat to popular social programs including Social Security and Medicare, Mulvaney entered the House of Representatives as a Tea Party candidate in 2011 and is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Democrats have also criticized him for failing to pay more than $15,000 in taxes related to a household employee until after he was nominated. Mulvaney was narrowly approved earlier this month by both the Senate Budget Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee, where McCain provided a crucial ‘yes’ vote to move the nomination forward. | Senate confirms Mulvaney as Trump's budget director |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The battle for the city of Raqqa, which Islamic State had used as its headquarters in Syria, is drawing to an end. Islamic State militants have lost swathes of land to various offensives across Syria and Iraq, forced into a diminishing foothold along the Euphrates river valley. Their defeat in Raqqa would be a milestone in the fight to roll back the theocratic caliphate Islamic State declared in 2014 in both countries. Following are some facts about Raqqa: Raqqa sits on the Euphrates river around 90 km (56 miles) from the Turkish border in north central Syria. Hardline Sunni militant group Islamic State overran Raqqa in January 2014, seizing control from rebel factions opposed to the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The United States has said Islamic State planned and sent teams from Raqqa to carry out attacks on cities including Paris, Brussels and Istanbul. THE ANTI-IS OFFENSIVE The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of mostly Kurdish and Arab militias, began to advance towards Raqqa city in November 2016. After encircling the city, they launched the offensive to take it, facing tough resistance. The United States-led coalition supports the SDF with air strikes and special forces on the ground. The battle for Raqqa has taken a severe toll on civilians. The United Nations said in March the city contained around 200,000 people, just under its pre-war population. Since late last year, fighting around and in Raqqa has displaced tens of thousands of people. Many have fled the city to camps in surrounding territory now under the control of the SDF and its strongest component, the Kurdish YPG militia. Civilians trapped inside the Islamic State enclave in the city have endured miserable conditions for months, lacking water, power, food and healthcare. Parts of Raqqa that the SDF captured have mostly been cleared of residents. Air strikes, fighting and Islamic State snipers and mines have killed many hundreds of people. The coalition says it is careful to avoid civilian casualties in its bombing runs in Syria and Iraq. But the U.N. human rights office and rights group Amnesty International have raised concerns about reports of high civilian deaths. Islamic State has imposed its very strict interpretation of Islamic law on Raqqa s residents. The fighters have carried out public executions, lashings and violent punishments for infringements of their rule. The Raqqa campaign has stirred tension between the United States and NATO-ally Turkey. Potential Kurdish influence in the future of the mainly Arab city is sensitive both for some activists from Raqqa and for Turkey. The YPG has become the main U.S. partner in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria. Ankara views it as a Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency within Turkey, and fears growing Kurdish power along its border. The SDF s political allies have set up a Raqqa Civil Council of people from the city, which the SDF says it will hand control to once its fighters have defeated Islamic State. This echoes the pattern in other towns and cities that the SDF captured. The U.S.-led coalition has helped train a new police force for the city. Islamic State has made enemies of all sides in the more than six-year Syrian conflict, with separate offensives now trying to clear it from its last foothold in the towns along the Euphrates river in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border. Besides the U.S.-backed SDF, the Syrian army, with Russian jets and Iran-backed militias, is also waging its own campaign against Islamic State in eastern Syria. A modern-day provincial transport hub and market town, Raqqa was built by the Abbasid Islamic Caliphate in the eighth century, serving as its capital at one point. It has been inhabited since antiquity and contains important archaeological and architectural sites. The United Nations has said they have been extensively looted during the war and religious buildings have been damaged. Islamic State militants released a video of them bombing a large part of the Uwais al-Qarani shrine complex in March 2014. | Factbox - Battle for Raqqa, Islamic State's Syrian HQ near end
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will begin a major push next week to convince the public of the need for tax reform, shifting his focus to fiscal policy in an effort to win a big legislative victory by the end of the year, The Financial Times reported on Friday. Trump would begin the effort next Wednesday with a speech in Missouri, the first in a series of addresses to generate public support on the issue, Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, told the newspaper. “We are completely engaged in tax reform,” Cohn told the FT in an interview. “Starting next week the president’s agenda and calendar is going to revolve around tax reform. He will start being on the road making major addresses justifying the reasoning for tax reform.” Although Cohn stressed that tax reform would be front and center of Trump’s agenda, the Republican-controlled Congress faces two other pressing issues when it returns from its August recess on Sept. 5. Lawmakers need to approve an increase in the U.S. debt ceiling to allow the federal government to keep borrowing money and paying its bills, including its debt obliterations. Separately they need to pass at least stop-gap spending measures to keep the government operating. Deadlines on both issues will loom within weeks after lawmakers return from their break. Asked by the FT whether the debate over the debt ceiling could derail the tax reform drive, Cohn said that “at the end of the day, Congress has to increase the debt ceiling - that is just the reality.” He added that this would be in September, before tax reform legislation. “The key point is this: tax reform is the White House’s number one focus right now,” he added. Cohn said White House officials had been working with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and other leading congressional Republicans on “an outline and skeleton” for the tax reform proposal, “and we have a good skeleton that we have agreed to.” The details Cohn discussed were similar to those mentioned by Ryan at a meeting with Boeing employees on Thursday. Asked whether the focus on tax reform had been complicated by Twitter attacks by the Republican president on McConnell and Ryan, Cohn said the White House officials worked well with the two “and we have made a massive amount of progress” on taxes. Cohn said the House Ways and Means Committee would put more “flesh and bone” on the tax reform plan when lawmakers return from the recess. He said he believed a bill could pass tax committees in both chambers and be passed by both the House and Senate by the end of 2017. In the case of individual taxpayers, Cohn said the president’s reform plan would protect the three big deductions that people can claim on taxes: for home mortgages, charitable giving and retirement savings. Beyond that, it would increase the caps for the standard deduction while eliminating most other personal deductions, Cohn said. The plan also aims to get rid of taxes on estates left when people die. Cohn said for businesses, the administration is proposing to lower corporate tax rates, while eliminating many of the deductions that businesses use to reduce the amount of tax they must pay. Asked whether the corporate tax rate could be cut to 15 percent as previously suggested by Trump, Cohn said, “I would like to get the tax rate as low as possible so that businesses want to create jobs here.” He said the administration would propose going to a system where American companies would not have to pay additional tax when they bring profits earned overseas back to the United States. “Today, they often have to pay extra taxes for bringing profits back to the U.S.,” Cohn said. “Our current system basically creates a penalty for headquartering in the U.S.” He said the administration did envision a one-time low tax rate on all overseas profits. | Trump to begin tax reform push next week, White House adviser tells FT |
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has two proposals on how to secure a frictionless border with EU member Ireland after Brexit, a new customs partnership or a highly streamlined approach to customs, Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire said on Sunday. We set out two proposals in relation to how we would deal with the issue of tariffs, how we would deal with those sorts of elements in relation to customs whether that be a new customs partnership where we would effectively apply a similar or the same tariff that the EU currently applies to goods coming into the EU, or a highly streamlined approach with effectively exemptions that would apply for small business, he told Sky News. | Britain has ways to secure no hard border with Ireland post-Brexit, says minister |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bill Nelson sent letters to the chief executives of 10 major U.S.-based airlines on Monday, urging them to cap airline fares for passengers fleeing Hurricane Maria so that confusion over cost does not delay evacuations, an aide said. I urge you to begin the process now for implementing capped airfare, Nelson said in his letter, noting that Maria is already a major hurricane. Individuals and families should not be forced to delay or cancel their evacuation efforts because of confusion over the cost of airfare. | Senator urges U.S. airlines to cap fares for people fleeing Maria |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans have reached a tentative budget deal that could allow tax reform legislation to eliminate as much as $1.5 trillion in revenues over 10 years through tax cuts, raising the odds that their planned tax overhaul would expand the federal deficit. Two members of the Senate Budget Committee, Republicans Pat Toomey and Bob Corker, announced the formal agreement late on Tuesday, but their joint news release did not provide dollar figures for revenue reduction or tax cuts. The prospective tax cuts are part of closed-door talks among 12 Senate Budget Committee Republicans who are drafting a fiscal 2018 budget measure needed to help the 100-member Senate pass a tax overhaul with as few as 51 Republicans votes and prevent Democrats from blocking the legislation. The U.S. economy is in a steady expansion and stock markets are rising. But the tax cuts being weighed by congressional Republicans, with encouragement from President Donald Trump, are on a scale normally reserved for times of economic hardship and intended to drive annual economic growth above 3 percent. Trump campaigned last year on a promise of comprehensive tax reform. But Republicans have made little tangible progress toward that ambitious goal so far. Toomey told reporters he is confident that Republicans will agree to a budget resolution that foresees a deficit in the first decade. He said, however, that talks have not settled definitively on $1.5 trillion. “I’d like to see a bigger number,” said Toomey, who argues that tax cuts would increase economic growth. In their joint news release, Toomey and Corker said they agreed on a budget resolution that would use a standard analysis of the impact of the tax cuts on the deficit. Some Republicans like Toomey have pushed for a “dynamic” model, which tends to assume an increased economic stimulus effect from tax cuts, resulting in smaller projected increases to the deficit. Senator John Thune, a member of the Senate Republican leadership team, said he expected the agreement to provide maximum flexibility to craft a tax overhaul capable of driving economic growth and ultimately raising worker wages. But looming in the background is Washington’s steady flow of red ink that adds every year to the $20 trillion national debt, a target of outrage not long ago for Republican “fiscal hawks.” In recent weeks, some fiscal hawks have expressed a willingness to consider deficit financing for tax reform but many at levels well below $500 billion. Toomey’s comments suggest Senate Republicans may be looking to deficit spending as a way to cut taxes on businesses and individuals while avoiding hard decisions that would be needed to raise taxes elsewhere or eliminate popular tax breaks. If adopted by Congress in a budget resolution, the $1.5 trillion figure would set a ceiling on how much revenue tax reform could eliminate over 10 years. Analysts and Democrats have warned that higher deficits resulting from tax cuts would eventually overwhelm economic growth at a time when U.S. interest rates are set to rise. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, whose panel would use the budget figure in crafting a tax reform bill, told reporters he was not sure that revenue losses of $1.5 trillion were needed for tax reform. Senator Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee’s top Democrat, dismissed the development as a distraction from the more important question of how Republican tax reform would ultimately benefit the wealthy. “It looks to me like yet another trial balloon,” Wyden said. Republicans have been unable to agree on how to pay for tax cuts and other proposed tax changes, aside from arguing that some lost revenue would be clawed back from the buoyant economic growth they believe tax reform will deliver. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to do tax cuts that pay for themselves,” said Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, another budget committee Republican. “But I think most people would concede that cutting taxes does stimulate the economy.” | Senate Republicans weigh tax cuts, deficit expansion |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional leaders and White House officials will release a document during the week of Sept. 25 outlining the framework for tax reform, a congressional source said on Wednesday. Afterward, the goal is for Congress to finish the budget process by mid-October, the source said. | Tax reform framework will appear end-Sept.: Congress source |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama does plan to sign a North Korea sanctions bill, the White House said on Wednesday. In a press briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Josh Earnest gave no indication of when such a measure might come. | Obama plans to sign North Korea sanctions bill: White House |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department, reacting to Spanish efforts to block a Catalan independence bid, said on Friday that Catalonia is an integral part of Spain and Washington backs Madrid s efforts to keep the country united. Catalonia is an integral part of Spain, and the United States supports the Spanish government s constitutional measures to keep Spain strong and united, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. | U.S. backs Spanish efforts to block break-away by Catalonia |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump will meet this weekend with Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a Pence spokesman said on Friday, after a report the governor was being vetted as a potential running mate for the Republican presidential candidate. As the Republican candidate for vice president, Pence, a social conservative from a Midwestern state, could help the real estate mogul reassure wary Republicans. The governor, who faces a tight race for re-election to a second term in Indiana, has praised Trump in the past but did not back him in the Republican Party’s nominating race. “Governor Pence has accepted an invitation to spend a little time with Mr. Trump this weekend,” said Marc Lotter, deputy campaign manager of Pence’s re-election effort. “This meeting is very consistent with meetings Mr. Trump is holding with many key party leaders.” Earlier, MSNBC, citing unnamed sources, said Trump is considering Pence, 57, as a potential running mate. The network, which first reported the upcoming meeting, said it was part of the vetting process. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich are also under consideration to be Trump’s running mate, sources told Reuters. “Trump is meeting with a number of Republican leaders in the run-up to the convention in Cleveland, and he has a good relationship with Gov. Pence,” Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said in an email. Republicans will hold their party convention July 18-21 in Cleveland to formally pick their nominee ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Trump, 70, a real estate mogul and former television reality star, was scheduled to speak at rally in Colorado on Friday. He has said he has narrowed down his potential running mates to five or six contenders, according to media reports. On Thursday, Pence told reporters he had not spoken with Trump since before Indiana’s May 3 primary contest, MSNBC said. The governor had earlier pledged to back former Trump rival Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas and Tea Party favorite. | Trump to meet Indiana Governor Mike Pence over the weekend |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior Republican U.S. senators criticized Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday for saying that Russia may have the “right approach” on Syria and for what they called his lack of focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. “His statements about Syria really disturb me. No, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not have it right when it comes to Syria,” Senator Lindsey Graham said. In separate television interviews, Graham and Senator John McCain, prominent Republican foreign policy voices, took aim at Tillerson’s remarks last week that Russia may have “got the right approach” and the United States the wrong approach to Syria. Russia has backed President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war, while the United States supports rebel groups trying to overthrow him. McCain told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he “sometimes” regretted backing Tillerson’s nomination by Republican President Donald Trump and that his comments on Russia being “right” on Syria made him emotional and upset. “I know what the slaughter has been like. I know that the Russians knew that Bashar Assad was going to use chemical weapons. And to say that maybe we’ve got the wrong approach?” he said. Both senators backed the nomination of Tillerson in January, even while expressing concern about his dealings with Russia when he was chief executive of ExxonMobil. (XOM.N) Graham, who visited Afghanistan and Pakistan last week with McCain, accused Tillerson of being “AWOL” on the two countries and failing to fill key State Department posts. “I am so worried about the State Department,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” A State Department official responded to the criticism of Tillerson by saying that a U.S.-Russian-brokered ceasefire for southwest Syria was an example of what the secretary had described as the potential to coordinate with Russia, in spite of unresolved differences, “to produce stability and serve our mutual security interests.” The official, who did not want to be identified, also said the State Department was taking an active role in a review of Afghanistan and Pakistan policy and continued to work with the White House on nominations. Since the exit of most foreign troops in 2014, Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government has lost ground to a Taliban insurgency in a war that kills and maims thousands of civilians each year. | Two senior Republican senators criticize Tillerson comments on Russia |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said on Monday that indictments announced by Special Counsel Robert Mueller do not change anything regarding his panel’s investigation of potential Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. “It doesn’t change anything with our investigation,” Burr said in a statement. “We received documents from and had interest in two of the individuals named, but clearly the criminal charges put them in the Special Counsel’s purview.” | Senate Intelligence chairman: Indictments do not change panel's investigation |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dominican-born Adriano Espaillat claimed victory on Tuesday in the U.S. congressional race to succeed longtime Representative Charles Rangel, signaling change in the historically black neighborhood of Harlem that has grown increasingly Hispanic. Nine Democrats ran in the primary to select the party’s candidate for November’s general election. In a district where Democratic voters heavily outnumber Republicans, Tuesday’s winner will have a virtual lock on taking Rangel’s vacated seat in the House of Representatives. Espaillat, once an illegal immigrant, would be the first Dominican-American member of Congress. A state senator, Espaillat, held a 3-point lead on state Assemblyman Keith Wright, an African-American who was endorsed by Rangel and benefited from the political machine of a man who held the job for 46 years. With 98 percent of polling places reporting, Espaillat had 36.7 percent of the vote compared with 33.7 percent for Wright, a difference of nearly 1,300 votes. “The voters of the 13th congressional district made history tonight,” Espaillat, 61, said in a victory speech. “The voters ... elected a country boy from Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic,” he said, mixing Spanish and English. Wright, however, refused to concede, telling supporters: “No candidate can declare victory tonight, not until every vote is counted.” The district is dominated by Harlem, long a leading cultural center, home to black political and commercial life, and an incubator for jazz. Harlem notably has grown more white with gentrification, but it also has become more Hispanic. Besides Harlem, the district also includes predominantly Latino neighborhoods further to the north where Espaillat has his base. Rangel, 86, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, won his first congressional election in 1970, and since then Harlem voters routinely returned him to office every two years, even after his 2010 censure for ethics violations. Espaillat tried and failed to unseat Rangel in 2012 and 2014 primary elections. Gentrification emerged as a leading issue in the campaign, as a decade-long influx of affluent people, many of them white, has transformed Harlem’s once-blighted blocks of 19th century brownstone town houses. Change has muted the distinctive black identity of the area, the home of the Apollo Theater, the Cotton Club and other monuments of African-American culture. Once an upscale Dutch neighborhood named after the city near Amsterdam, Harlem drew African-Americans during the northward migration of former slaves in the late 19th Century and again between the world wars. In decades past, affluent New Yorkers avoided venturing too far north, or “uptown.” But soaring property values have turned Harlem into one of New York’s trendiest real estate markets. | Hispanic claims victory in Harlem race to replace Rangel in U.S. Congress |
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed into law on Sunday a measure to punish “sanctuary cities,” despite a plea from police chiefs of the state’s biggest cities to halt the bill they said would hinder their ability to fight crime. The Texas measure comes as Republican U.S. President Donald Trump has made combating illegal immigration a priority. Texas, which has an estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants and the longest border with Mexico of any U.S. state, has been at the forefront of the immigration debate. “As governor, my top priority is public safety, and this bill furthers that objective by keeping dangerous criminals off our streets,” Abbott said in a statement. The law will take effect on Sept. 1. The Republican-dominated legislature passed the bill on party-line votes and sent the measure to Abbott earlier this month. It would punish local authorities who do not abide by requests to cooperate with federal immigration agents. Police officials found to be in violation of the law could face removal from office, fines and up to a year in prison if convicted. The measure also allows police to ask people about their immigration status during a lawful detention, even for minor infractions like jaywalking. Any anti-sanctuary city measure may face a tough road after a federal judge in April blocked Trump’s executive order seeking to withhold funds from local authorities that do not use their resources to advance federal immigration laws. Democrats have warned the measure could lead to unconstitutional racial profiling and civil rights groups have promised to fight the Texas measure in court. “This legislation is bad for Texas and will make our communities more dangerous for all,” the police chiefs of cities including Houston and Dallas wrote in an opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News in late April. They said immigration was a federal obligation and the law would stretch already meager resources by turning local police into immigration agents. The police chiefs said the measure would widen a gap between police and immigrant communities, creating a class of silent victims and eliminating the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving or preventing crimes. One of the sponsors of the bill, Republican state Representative Charlie Geren, said in House debate the bill would have no effect on immigrants in the country illegally if they had not committed a crime. He also added there were no sanctuary cities in Texas at present and the measure would prevent any from emerging. | Texas governor signs into law bill to punish 'sanctuary cities' |
PENSACOLA, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed on Friday that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be “shot out of the water” if he is elected on Nov. 8. Trump, at a rally before thousands of supporters in Pensacola, Florida, laid out an aggressive national security policy with a beefed-up U.S. military “so strong that nobody’s going to mess with us.” He talked tough about how he would respond to any Iranian harassment of American ships in the Gulf. A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship changed course after an Iranian fast-attack craft came within 100 yards (91 meters) of it on Sunday. It was the fourth such incident in the past month. “When they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water,” he said. Trump has based his foreign policy beliefs on keeping the United States out of what he called “endless wars” in the Middle East. Visiting a city with a U.S. Navy base and where many military veterans live, Trump said he wants a stronger military to project American power and bolster the United States as the leader of the world. Trump this week laid out a plan to spend many billions of dollars on bolstering the U.S. military, including more ships, planes and troops. “We’re going to put us in a position of leadership of the world again so we can negotiate from a position of great, great strength. But more important than negotiating, we will be secure again,” he said. Trump, who has drawn criticism for his frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also mentioned a recent incident in which a Russian fighter jet came within 10 feet (3 meters) of a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the Black Sea. “Putin laughs, believe me, he laughs at our leaders. Yesterday he had a plane 10 feet away, taunting us, toying with us, just like Iran,” he said. | Trump vows harsh response to Iranian vessels that harass U.S. Navy |
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - An international investigation into who is to blame for chemical weapons attacks in Syria will end on Friday after Russia blocked for the third time in a month attempts at the United Nations to renew the inquiry, which Moscow has slammed as flawed. In the past two years, the joint U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inquiry has found the Syrian government used the nerve agent sarin in an April 4 attack and has also several times used chlorine as a weapon. It blamed Islamic State militants for using mustard gas. Russia vetoed on Friday a Japanese-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution to extend the inquiry for one month. It was an eleventh-hour bid to buy more time for negotiations after Russia blocked U.S.-drafted resolutions on Thursday and Oct. 24 to renew the investigation, which the council created in 2015. Syrian ally Russia has cast 11 vetoes on possible Security Council action on Syria since the country s civil war began in 2011. The Japanese draft received 12 votes in favor on Friday, while China abstained and Bolivia joined Russia to vote no. After Friday s vote, the council moved to closed-door discussions at the request of Sweden s U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog to ensure we are absolutely convinced we have exhausted every avenue, every effort to try and renew the investigation. After a brief discussion, Italian U.N. Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, council president for November, told reporters: The council will continue to work in the coming hours and days, constructively, to find a common position. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council earlier on Friday that the inquiry could only be extended if fundamental flaws in its work were fixed. He said that for the past two year the investigators had rubber-stamped baseless accusations against Syria. The council voted on a rival Russian-drafted resolution on Thursday to renew the inquiry, but it failed after only garnering four votes in favor. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Russia, Britain or China to be adopted. Russia is wasting our time, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the council on Friday. Russia s actions today and in recent weeks have been designed to delay, to distract and ultimately to defeat the effort to secure accountability for chemical weapons attacks in Syria, Haley said. While Russia agreed to the creation of the inquiry two years ago, it has consistently questioned its work and conclusions. The April 4 sarin attack on Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people prompted the United States to launch missiles on a Syrian air base. Haley warned on Thursday: We will do it again if we must. Despite the public deadlock and war of words between the United States and Russia at the United Nations, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Thursday that President Donald Trump believed he could work with Russian President Vladimir Putin on issues like Syria. Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. | Syria toxic gas inquiry to end after Russia again blocks U.N. renewal |
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq s parliament voted on Tuesday on a formula to halt financial transactions with the Kurdistan region, in retaliation for last week s independence referendum, Iraqi State TV said, without specifying if vote was binding on the government. The formula would preserve the interests of Kurdish citizens, the channel said, hinting that the measures would target the Kurdish leadership. The channel gave no further details. | Iraq parliament votes to halt transactions with Kurdistan: state TV |
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India on Monday formed a panel of government officials to investigate cases that figure in the so-called Paradise Papers, a trove of leaked documents about offshore investments of wealthy individuals and institutions. Officials from government bodies and the central bank will carry out and monitor the investigation, the finance ministry said. The leaked documents were obtained by Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and some media outlets. Reuters has not independently verified the documents which relate to the affairs of individuals and institutions ranging from U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and trading firm Glencore (GLEN.L). | India orders investigation after Paradise Papers leak |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It will be difficult for future U.S. administrations to undo President Barack Obama’s policy of easing trade and travel restrictions with Cuba because of the benefits associated with the measures, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. “We’ve increased the space for this type of travel, people to people exchange, commercial opportunities in ways that are already having a positive impact on the lives of Americans and Cubans,” the official said. “Turning back the clock on that policy would only take away those opportunities.” | U.S. policy changes on Cuba will be tough to undo: official |
EDINBURGH/OTTAWA (Reuters) - The standoff between Madrid and supporters of independence in Spain s wealthy Catalan region has stirred separatist feelings far beyond the Spanish borders. Politicians across the globe criticized armed Spanish police who used truncheons and rubber bullets on voters, injuring hundreds in a crackdown on Sunday s secession vote, considered illegal under Spain s 1978 Constitution. Several politicians from regions with their own separatist movements said it was time for politics to resolve the crisis in the euro zone s fourth-biggest economy. Catalan leaders said the result showed its people wanted to leave Spain and it would push ahead with secession. Madrid has ruled out talks until, it said, Catalonia acts within the law. The solution is political. It won t be through repression, it won t be through brutality, and what needs to happen is a political discussion. I think that s reality, Quebec s premier Philippe Couillard told reporters. He drew parallels for a potential solution to his own province, which has held two referendums on whether to separate from Canada and the last of which in 1995 was narrowly defeated. Other politicians called on the European Union, currently facing a huge challenge to its unity in Britain s impending exit from the bloc, to intervene in a deepening crisis that has shaken the euro and Spanish stocks and bonds. They said it was a matter of human rights. Joanna Cherry, a lawmaker from the Scottish National Party, called on the EU to up its game. Her party lost a legally binding referendum on Scottish independence from the UK in 2014 the terms of which were hammered out between both sides. The SNP-led Scottish government is urging talks to let Catalans decide their own future. Spain will maintain that this vote is not legitimate, but the strength of feeling demonstrated cannot be ignored by Spain, it said. Matt Carthy, European lawmaker for Irish nationalists Sinn Fein whose aim is to unite British-run Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic, called the EU a shower of utter hypocrites. The EU has ignored a vicious assault on EU citizens in Catalonia because they had the audacity to vote, he told fellow European lawmakers in an emotionally-charged speech. We are told the EU stands for peace, democracy and human rights. Where were those values on Sunday? Opinion polls conducted before the Catalan vote suggested a minority of around 40 percent of Catalans backed independence, but a majority wanted a referendum to be held. Catalan officials released preliminary referendum results showing 90 percent support in favor of breaking away, but turnout was 43 percent and low among those who favor remaining part of Spain mainly boycotted the ballot. Spain s constitution determines that the majority which counts is Spain as a whole, not Catalonia s 5.3 million voters. Ireland s prime minister Leo Varadkar has said his government respects Spain s constitution but he also described the violence as disproportionate and counterproductive. Spain s deputy prime minister and European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans have said the use of force was proportionate . Turkey, which condemned last week s referendum for Kurdish independence in northern Iraq, also spoke of the importance of respecting Spanish law and territorial integrity. We believe that Spain ( ) will overcome such challenges and establish a national dialogue environment through a democratic approach, Turkey s foreign ministry said. In Serbia, officials accused the EU of double standards by refusing to recognize Catalonia s vote and at the same time supporting the independence of Serbia s former province Kosovo. Another would-be breakaway group, the Movement for the Autonomy of Slask (RAS) which wants autonomy for Poland s Slask region, said that events in Spain were proof of the temptation to use repression to control political dissent. The European community should work out rules and procedures for solving similar conflicts, it said. Its indifference with respect to the forceful repression of aspirations of Catalan people for self-rule will be interpreted as a sign of weakness and will deepen the confidence crisis that many Europeans feel toward EU institutions. | Catalan standoff touches separatist hearts beyond Spain |
JACKSONVILLE, Fla (Reuters) - When U.S. manufacturing employment peaked, Jimmy Carter was president, inflation was 11 percent, and craftsmen at Frontier Contact Lenses made the company’s products one at a time on diamond-tipped lathes. As presidential candidates promise to reclaim jobs lost in the intervening decades, they might want to visit the company now. Bought by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) in 1981, the fully automated factory allows four workers to produce in a 12-hour shift what more labor-intensive methods produced in a year. The Jacksonville plant and one in Ireland make 4 billion soft contacts a year, and between the robots and lasers and computer algorithms no worker touches the product from the start of the process through final packaging. “I don’t think you could even make 4 billion lenses” using the old method, said David Turner, vice president of research and development for Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. “You’d need a guy with a lathe in every town.” Since peaking at 19.5 million in 1979, the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs has fallen 37 percent to around 12.2 million as of March, or just over 10 percent of the private sector workforce. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/1WqpioK) That may be as good as it gets. Despite the promises made on the campaign trail by Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and other candidates, the next president will find it hard to raise manufacturing’s share of a U.S. labor force that keeps shifting toward services. While much of the jobs debate has centered on trade pacts that Democrats and Republicans have backed over the last quarter century, both successful and struggling companies and sectors offer evidence of long-term trends that neither sharp trade negotiators nor aggressive political leaders can easily reverse. Even critics of trade deals acknowledge that labor intensive industries, such as textiles, which once employed hundreds of thousands of less-skilled workers, are probably gone for good. Technology continues to diminish the share of labor in production and its spread around the world has made other nations - notably China, but also Korea, Brazil, Mexico and former Soviet bloc countries - competitive both as exporters and in their own markets. Investment worldwide is drifting steadily toward services, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and Americans are spending relatively less of their income on manufactured goods. A Reuters analysis of federal data for 1,267 categories of goods shows that the United States has been running a trade deficit in more than 500 of them since at least 1992 - before the North American Free Trade Agreement came into force or China joined the World Trade Organization, events often cited as turning points for U.S. manufacturing. Since the 2007-2009 recession manufacturing has added about 800,000 jobs, but that has lagged overall job growth. As a result manufacturing’s share of private employment has continued to fall, from about 11 percent since the recession ended. “The move toward a more global market hurts the marginal, low-skilled worker, but it was inevitable and you cannot roll it back,” said Brookings Institution senior fellow Barry Bosworth. At CareerSource Northeast Florida, a job development group, President Bruce Ferguson, Jr. said by necessity he focused on finding a “path” for entry level service sector employees to move up a career ladder, because services are where the growth is. “The raw (manufacturing) numbers don’t look anything like the service sector and they never will,” he said. A majority of 6,500 Americans surveyed in March as part of Reuters/Ipsos 2016 campaign polling acknowledged that free trade brings lower prices, but also saw it as a drag on wages and jobs and an “important” issue for the next president to confront. Tapping such concerns, Trump has promised punitive tariffs to “bring back” jobs for those left behind in the current recovery, particularly the roughly two thirds of Americans without a college degree. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton switched gears as a candidate to oppose a major Pacific trade deal and promises billions in public support for manufacturing. Her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders calls for worker protection against what he considers unfair trade, while Republican Ted Cruz has focused on trimming government red tape. However, playing tough on trade carries some risks and there are limits to what trade talks and tariffs can accomplish. The U.S. steel industry is a case in point. The American Iron and Steel Institute estimates around 12,000 jobs were lost to a recent jump in imports, mainly from China. It reckons those jobs could be recovered with steps, such as the anti-dumping duties imposed by Washington late last year. That pales, however, in comparison with more than 200,000 jobs that the sector has lost since the early 1980s, some because of imports, but some because the amount of labor needed to produce a ton of steel has fallen from 10 hours to less than two. “There has been a short term loss that is definitely attributable to imports, while a longer term trend reflects technological innovation,” said Kevin Dempsey, the institute’s senior vice president. Such dynamic is not limited to old industries like steel. Florida is home to successful manufacturers big and small in a wide range of sectors, which export nearly half of their output - double the national average. Yet, as is the case nationally, the share of jobs available to those with a high school degree has been shrinking since 2000, according to federal data, and wages have been stagnant. Johnson & Johnson Vision Care’s recent approval of a $300 million expansion, which added some 100 jobs, cements the company’s U.S. presence, but also shows how technology and innovation reshape the landscape. The company’s local workforce has risen to around 1,700, but about 60 percent of that are white collar and non-manufacturing jobs - from research positions for PhD scientists to those in sales and a highly automated shipping operation. Florida development officials say the trend is clear: manufacturers keep cutting the labor content of their products and each round of investment tends to drive up the skill levels that workers need. That may benefit the state’s economy, but acts as a reality check for workers who hope that the November 8 presidential vote can reverse decades-old trends. “How do you evaluate a company that says we will spend a lot of money and make the workforce more qualified but not create many jobs?” said Aaron Bowman, senior vice president for business development at JAXUSA Partnership, a regional economic development agency and division of the local chamber of commerce. “Over time you see more projects that bring in fewer jobs but a bigger bang.” | Trump's jobs homecoming a long shot even in manufacturing hot spots |
SAN DIEGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday said he was leaning toward approving a $25 million settlement of fraud claims against President Donald Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars but deferred a final decision to a later date. At a hearing in San Diego, Judge Gonzalo Curiel noted that, under the class action settlement, former Trump University students were expected to recover 80 percent of the money they spent on courses and mentoring programs. “That is an extraordinary amount,” the judge said, noting the recovery rate in similar lawsuits is usually closer to between 11 and 20 percent. He did not specify when he would rule. A Florida woman objected to the settlement, saying she should have the opportunity to opt out and take Trump to court herself. Patrick Coughlin, a class action lawyer for the students, said the students would actually receive over 90 percent of their money back. Some 3,730 students submitted claim forms in the class action that dates to 2010, according to court papers. The students, who paid as much as $35,000 for the seminars, claimed they were lured by false promises that they would learn Trump’s investing “secrets” from his “hand-picked” instructors. Trump vowed to continue fighting the fraud claims during the presidential election campaign but agreed to the settlement soon after. He has admitted he did not personally select the instructors, but his lawyers have described the claim as mere sales “puffery.” Trump accused Curiel of bias last year based on the Indiana-born judge’s Mexican ancestry. Sherri Simpson, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who paid $19,000, objected to the settlement provision blocking students from opting out of the deal. She has said in court papers she would like to seek full recovery from Trump, plus punitive damages and other relief. Gary Friedman, a lawyer for Simpson, argued in court the notices were defective. Curiel questioned Friedman and said he would consider the objection. | U.S. judge views $25 million Trump University settlement favorably |
PARIS (Reuters) - France will not recognize Catalonia if the Spanish region unilaterally declares independence, European affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau said on Monday. If there were to be a declaration of independence, it would be unilateral, and it would not be recognized, Loiseau said on CNews television. Catalonia, which has its own language and culture and is led by a pro-independence regional government, held a referendum on Oct. 1 over secession in defiance of Spain s constitutional court, which had declared the vote illegal. Catalonia cannot be defined by the vote organized by the independence movement just over a week ago, the French junior minister said. This crisis needs to be resolved through dialogue at all levels of Spanish politics. A hasty decision to recognize independence following such a unilateral declaration would amount to fleeing France s responsibilities, Loiseau added. If independence were to be recognized - which is not something that s being discussed - the most immediate consequence would be that (Catalonia) automatically left the European Union. | France would not recognize unilateral Catalan declaration: minister |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Any U.S. decision to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons would set back peace efforts and escalate tensions, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. The Kremlin was referring to an interview given by U.S. special envoy on Ukraine, Kurt Volker, to Britain’s broadcaster BBC, in which he said that Washington was actively reviewing whether to send weapons to help those fighting against Russian-backed rebels. The Kremlin said a possible delivery of U.S. weapons to Ukraine could destabilize the situation along the frontline in the east of the country. “We have already said more than once that any action which escalates tension ... and further aggravates the already complicated situation will only move us further and further away from the moment of settling this internal issue of Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters. | Kremlin: U.S. arms supplies to Ukraine would set back peace efforts |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Republicans took important steps on Thursday toward the biggest U.S. tax-code overhaul since the 1980s, with the House of Representatives approving a broad package of tax cuts, and a Senate panel advancing its own version of the legislation sought by senior lawmakers and President Donald Trump. The House vote shifted the tax debate to the Senate, where a tax-writing panel finished debating and approved a bill late Thursday evening. That measure has already encountered resistance from some within the Republicans ranks. Full Senate action is expected after next week’s Thanksgiving holiday. Four Republican senators - enough to derail the legislation - have been talking privately about opposing the bill because it would balloon the federal deficit, according to a Time magazine report. Trump, who is still seeking his first major legislative win since taking office in January, went to the U.S. Capitol just before the House vote to urge Republicans to pass the tax bill, which Democrats call a giveaway to the wealthy and businesses. “A simple, fair and competitive tax code will be rocket fuel for our economy, and it’s within our reach. Now is the time to deliver,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said after the largely party-line House vote of 227-205. Congress has not thoroughly overhauled the sprawling U.S. tax code since Republican Ronald Reagan was president. The House measure is not as comprehensive as Reagan’s 1986 package, but it is more ambitious than anything since then. The path forward for the tax plan in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority, is fraught with obstacles about concerns over the deficit, healthcare and the distribution of tax benefits. Republicans can lose no more than two Senate votes if Democrats remain united in opposition. Senate Republican tax-writers earlier this week made the risky decision of tying their plan to a repeal of the requirement for people to get healthcare insurance under former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. That exposed the tax initiative to the same political forces that wrecked Republicans’ anti-Obamacare push earlier in July. The House bill, estimated to increase the federal deficit by nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years, would consolidate individual and family tax brackets to four from seven and reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. It also would scale back or end some popular tax deductions, including one for state and local income taxes, while preserving a capped deduction for property tax payments. Democrats have pointed to analyses showing millions of Americans could end up with a tax hike because of eliminated deductions. Repealing or shrinking some deductions is a way to offset the revenue lost from tax cuts. “It’s a shameful piece of legislation, and the Republicans should know better,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers before the vote. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned Republicans that by increasing the deficit, the tax bill would imperil other important priorities such as military spending. Thirteen House Republicans opposed the bill, all but one from New York, New Jersey or California - states with high taxes where residents would feel the pinch from eliminating the deduction for state and local income taxes. “This fight is not over. I look forward to continuing negotiations to improve this proposal for my constituents,” said Republican Representative Lee Zeldin of New York, who voted against the bill. Investors have cheered the prospect of a tax overhaul. U.S. stocks rose and the dollar edged higher against a basket of major currencies on Thursday after the House vote. Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago, said stocks’ strong gains on the day were helped by the House vote. “It’s helping stocks now and the bond market’s turned around,” he said. “The tax plan isn’t a foregone conclusion, but it passed the lowest hurdle in the House. The even higher hurdle is to have something pass in the Senate.” Republicans have long promised tax cuts and see enacting them as critical to their prospects of retaining power in Washington in the November 2018 congressional elections, particularly after failing to meet their promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. But it will be a challenge in the 100-seat Senate, where Republicans have only a 52-48 majority. Senators Jeff Flake and James Lankford are among the four Republicans considering opposing the plan, Time reported. A Lankford spokesman said he was “eager to work with colleagues to pass tax reform.” Flake, who often clashes with Trump and has announced he will not seek re-election next year, told Reuters on Thursday he was “more worried about the fiscal problem” than other issues. Several other senators, including Ron Johnson and Susan Collins, who helped sink the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, have expressed concerns. Johnson announced his opposition because of what he said were unequal rates for small businesses and non-corporate enterprises known as “pass-throughs,” versus corporations. He is working with the White House to fix the issue, he told Reuters. Senator John McCain, a Republican who also voted against the healthcare overhaul effort this summer, and his colleagues Bob Corker and Lisa Murkowski, are also considered critical votes. Nonpartisan congressional analysts say the provision to repeal the health insurance mandate in the Senate version would drive up premium costs and cause some 13 million Americans to lose coverage. The Senate plan also sets individual tax rate cuts to expire while reductions for corporations are permanent. If the full Senate approves its measure, it will have to be reconciled with the House version before legislation can be sent to Trump’s desk for his signature. Republican Representative Tom Cole said that should not be a problem. “There’s no issue here that can’t be ironed out and settled between us,” Cole told reporters. | Tax overhaul drama moves to Senate as House approves its bill |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Wednesday made its final plea to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow its proposed ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries to go into effect as the justices weigh how to handle the hotly contested dispute. The court papers filed by President Donald Trump’s administration complete the briefing on the government’s emergency application asking the justices to block lower court injunctions in favor of challengers to the ban. The Supreme Court could now act at any time. The lower court rulings blocked the 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugees entering the United States to give the government time to implement stronger vetting procedures. In the court papers, Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall said the lower courts had wrongly second-guessed the president on national security policy when reviewing the March 6 executive order. “The president expressly determined that the order’s provisions are needed to promote national security, but the lower courts here ... nullified that judgment,” he wrote. In court papers filed on Tuesday, lawyers for the state of Hawaii and individual plaintiffs in Maryland urged the high court not to allow the ban go into effect. | Trump lawyers make final Supreme Court pitch on travel ban test |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s ruling bloc could come close to keeping its two-thirds super majority in an Oct. 22 lower house election, defying some predictions of substantial losses and solidifying his grip on power, a survey published by the Nikkei business daily on Wednesday showed. Abe s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its more dovish junior partner, the Komeito, are likely to secure more than 290 seats in the 465-seat chamber, the Nikkei said. The ruling bloc had a two-thirds super majority in the lower house before the chamber was dissolved. The number of seats has been cut from 475 as part of electoral reforms. The Nikkei forecast was broadly in line with a Kyodo news agency forecast released on Thursday that saw Abe s coalition winning more than 300 seats. However, Kyodo said 54.4 percent of voters were still undecided. A survey by the Yomiuri newspaper showed the LDP and Komeito winning close to 300 seats. A strong showing by Abe s coalition would boost his chances of winning a third term as LDP leader from next September, putting him on track to become Japan s longest-serving premier. Abe called the snap election amid confusion in the opposition camp and after an uptick in his ratings, which had been hurt earlier this year by suspected cronyism scandals, in hopes of gaining a fresh mandate after nearly five years in power. But the outlook has been clouded by the emergence of popular Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike s Party of Hope, a fledgling party that the former LDP lawmaker and defense minister calls a reformist, conservative alternative to Abe s LDP. The Nikkei said Koike s party was on track to get around 69 seats, with a forecast range of 46-110. Another new party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, formed from the liberal wing of the failed opposition Democratic Party, was set to win more than 40 seats, it said. The Democrats, faced with rock-bottom ratings and internal dissension, have said they would run no candidates of their own, freeing many to run on the Party of Hope ticket. PRO-CONSTITUTION REVISION FORCES The Asahi newspaper also forecast a strong showing by the ruling bloc, with the LDP set to win well over the 233 seats needed to have a simple majority on its own. It said Koike s Party of Hope was struggling but was likely to get more than 57 seats. About 40 percent of voters were undecided, the Asahi said. The Nikkei also forecast that parties in favor of revising the post-war, pacifist constitution - Abe s long-held goal - were on track to win more than two-thirds. That includes the LDP and Koike s Party of Hope as well as another smaller right-leaning party, the Japan Innovation Party. Amending the constitution, a politically controversial move never yet taken, requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers and a majority in a public referendum. Koike s party had raised expectations that it would cut into the LDP s conservative base. But her decision not to run for a lower house seat herself and refusal to say whom her party would support for premier after the election appears to have eroded the party s momentum. Competition among a fragmented opposition, which also includes the Japanese Communist Party, in many districts means the anti-LDP vote could be split, a plus for Abe s party. Abe has led the LDP to four landslide wins since he took the helm of the party in 2012, but turnout has been low and the LDP has typically won with about 25 percent of eligible votes. The others either stayed home or backed opposition parties. The premier has been touting the success of his Abenomics recipe of hyper-easy monetary policy, fiscal spending and promised structural reforms, while Koike argues that reforms have been too slow in a fast-changing global economy. The world s third-largest economy is on track for its longest expansion since World War Two, and the jobless rate was at a 23-year low of 2.8 percent in August while wages are starting to rise a bit. But Abe s reflationary policies have not yet sparked a sustainable recovery led by the private sector. | Japan PM's ruling bloc seen nearing 2/3 majority in Oct. 22 lower house poll: Nikkei |
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish cargo ship with 10 crew on board sank in the Black Sea near the Asian side of Istanbul early on Wednesday morning, according to the coast guard. The cause was still unclear. The ship, Bilal Bal, was carrying cast iron from Turkey s northwestern province of Bursa to the northern province of Zonguldak, the Dogan news agency reported. Unfortunately, one of our cargo ships sank in ... the Black Sea, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. Search and rescue operations were continuing, he said. Three boats, one helicopter and one plane belonging to the coast guard were conducting search and rescue operations, according the coast guard. Empty lifeboats had been found as well as some life jackets, the coast guard said. Five boats more were deployed to aid in the operations, as well as a remotely operated underwater vehicle from the Turkish naval forces, it said. | Cargo ship with 10 crew sinks in Black Sea, coast guard reports |
PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he had a good conversation with President Barack Obama on Wednesday, after earlier tweeting that the transition was not going smoothly. “He called me. We had a very, very good talk ... generally about things. ... was a very, very nice call, and I actually thought we covered a lot of territory,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “Our staffs are getting along very well and I’m getting along very well” with him, Trump said. Earlier on Wednesday, Trump tweeted: “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!” | Trump says he had a 'very good talk' with Obama on Wednesday xxxx |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security terminated a program on Wednesday that allowed minors fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to settle in the United States, ending travel hopes for more than 2,700 children awaiting approval. In a notice published in the Federal Register that goes into effect Aug. 16, the government said it was ending the practice of granting parole under the Central American Minors (CAM) Program, which was offered to children even if they had been denied refugee status. The program started at the end of 2014 under the administration of former President Barack Obama as a response to tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking entry into the United States. An executive order on border security signed by U.S. President Donald Trump days after he took office in January triggered a review of the program, putting on hold applications of more than 2,700 children who had been conditionally approved for entry into the United States. Now those applications will be canceled. The bulk of the children approved for the program were from El Salvador. Immigration advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) said that cancelling the program would lead to more children to try to find other means to enter the United States. “These children have been repeatedly told by the U.S. government, including the Trump Administration, not to migrate to the United States due to safety concerns,” the organization said in a statement. “Now this Administration is cutting off the only authorized channel and leaving children no choice but to make the perilous journey to the United States.” The program allowed children under 21 years old with parents lawfully living in the United States to apply for a refugee resettlement interview before making the journey to the United States. As of August 4, more than 1,500 children and eligible family members had arrived in the United States as refugees under the CAM program, according to the State Department. Children who did not qualify for refugee status and had no other means of reuniting with their parents in the United States could also apply for entry under the program. They would be approved for parole for two years, allowing them to travel and stay in the United States and apply for work permits. Since its inception, more than 1,400 children were granted parole and allowed to travel to the United States. They included 1,110 from El Salvador, 324 from Honduras and 31 from Guatemala, according to a spokesman from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Now, they will have to re-apply for parole once their two-year term expires but will only be able to have it renewed if they can demonstrate “an urgent humanitarian or a significant public benefit reason” for them to stay, the federal register said. Parole decisions would be determined on a case-by-case basis. More than 13,000 people have applied for the program since it began, the State Department said. Around 1 percent of applicants were denied both for refugee status and parole, according to the USCIS spokesman. The refugee portion of the program will not be affected by Wednesday’s termination and children stranded abroad can still apply as refugees. | U.S. ends program for Central American minors fleeing violence |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump took Republican Senator Bob Corker to task on Twitter on Friday, apparently responding to the Foreign Relations Committee chair’s comment that Trump did not understand the nation’s character and had not demonstrated competence. “Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in ‘18. Tennessee not happy!” Trump wrote of the Tennessee senator. Responding to Trump’s comments about violence at a neo-Nazi and white supremacist protest earlier this month, Corker recently said, “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence, that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.” | Trump says criticism of him by Republican Senator Corker 'strange' |
ROME (Reuters) - International humanitarian group Save the Children said on Monday it had suspended migrant rescues in the Mediterranean Sea as departures from Libya slow and security conditions worsen. Save the Children has operated a ship, the Vos Hestia, since September last year, rescuing more than 10,000 migrants from dangerous and overcrowded boats launched by people smugglers. For too long we have been the substitution for the inexistent and inadequate European policies for search and rescue and for hosting migrants, Save the Children Director General Valerio Neri said in a statement. Italian police searched the Vos Hestia on Monday as part of a wider investigation into the role non-government organizations are playing in picking up migrants off the Libya coast and bringing them to Italy. Save the Children said its decision to halt rescues was already planned before the police search. Earlier this year, the government asked humanitarian groups to sign a code of conduct . The government said the rescuers were providing an incentive for smugglers to put migrants to sea. Police in August seized a migrant rescue boat operated by a German aid group Jugend Rettet. The chief prosecutor in the Sicilian city of Trapani said he had evidence of encounters between traffickers, who escorted illegal immigrants to the NGO boat, and members of its crew. Jugend Rettet denied any wrongdoing. Save the Children said in a statement it was not under investigation and was cooperating with authorities. The documents seized by police on Monday concerned presumed illegal actions committed by third persons , it said. Several months ago some 10 rescue ships took turns patrolling the North African coast, picking up migrants who reached international waters and bringing them to Italy. Now only one large ship and a few small ones remain, with many organizations including Doctors Without Borders pulling out for various reasons, including security concerns and unhappiness with the attitude of the Italian authorities. The Libyan Coast Guard, funded and trained by Italy, has taken a hostile stance toward the humanitarian boats in a series of incidents on the high seas. In August, a Libyan vessel intercepted a charity ship and ordered it to sail to Tripoli or risk being fired on. Departures from Libya have fallen dramatically since July, when an armed group that had been deeply involved in smuggling from the city of Sabratha began blocking departures. So far in October sea arrivals to Italy are down more than 75 percent compared with the same month last year. | Save the Children suspends migrant rescues in Mediterranean |
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomb attack in the Afghan capital near a meeting of supporters of an influential regional leader on Thursday killed at least nine people and wounded many, the interior ministry said. Islamic State claimed responsibility, according to Amaq, its official news agency. The Taliban denied involvement. Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of the northern province of Balkh and a leader of the mainly ethnic Tajik Jamiat-i-Islami party, was not at the meeting at the time of the attack, members of the party said. Political tensions are rising as politicians have begun jockeying for position ahead of presidential elections expected in 2019 and thousands of civilians have been killed in attacks this year. The bomber approached the hotel hosting the gathering on foot but was spotted by a police official, Sayed Basam Padshah, as he neared a security checkpoint, an interior ministry spokesman said. The attacker triggered his explosives vest before he could get any further, Kabul police chief Basir Mujahid told Reuters. Padshah was among the seven policemen and two civilians killed. He saved many lives by sacrificing his life, Mujahid said. The northern-based Jamiat-i-Islami was for years the main opponent of the Taliban, who draw their support largely from the southern-based ethnic Pashtun community. A witness to Thursday s bombing said: We are proud to be martyred because of our country and our rights. This gathering was for the sake of our country to raise our voice. In June, a suicide bomber attacked a meeting of Jamiat-i-Islami leaders, including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. Abdullah, who is supported by ethnic minority leaders including Noor who fought against the Taliban s hard-line Islamist regime in the 1990s, formed a coalition government with President Ashraf Ghani after a disputed 2014 presidential election. Ghani on Wednesday sacked the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, raising doubts over whether parliamentary and council ballots scheduled for next year will take place as planned. | Suicide bomber kills nine near Afghan political meeting |
OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday he doubted whether Donald Trump could undo much of the current administration’s record on the environment because so many green policies have firmly taken hold. Trump, who will take over as president on Jan. 20, has said he does not believe in global warming and will name a climate change skeptic, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The Republican is expected to nominate another climate change skeptic, U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, to head the Interior Department, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday. Democratic President Barack Obama has made the fight against global warming a priority, and Biden said businesses now realized his policies made sense economically. “There is a constituency that crosses party lines. Regardless of whether the next administration is as aggressive as we have been - and I’m not suggesting they intend to - there is no way to turn back this tide that has begun to roll,” the vice president told a Canadian environmental summit. The Obama administration has lifted vehicle fuel standards, invested heavily in renewable energy, pushed to curb methane gas emissions and adopted a Clean Power Plan that requires states to cut carbon output. Biden said that in some parts of the United States it was now cheaper to use solar or wind power rather than rely on power stations fueled by coal or gas. Company executives were starting to price in carbon emissions reduction while motorists enjoyed not having to refuel their vehicles as often, he said. “Reality has a way of intruding,” he said. “Whatever uncertainly exists around the near-term policy choices of the next president, I am absolutely confident the United States will continue making progress on this path to a low-carbon future.” “And that’s because many of the trends I’ve mentioned have taken hold and are no longer dependent on government initiatives. They are market-driven, they are common sense.” Trump has vowed that within his first 100 days in office he will rescind the Clean Power Plan, eliminate “unwarranted restrictions” on hydraulic fracturing oil-drilling technology, cut “outdated” regulations, and pull the country out of a global pact to curb warming of the planet. Biden said, “One of the things the president and I are proudest of accomplishing over the last eight years is debunking the myth that America can’t grow our economy and bring down emissions at the same time.”. Among those in the audience for Biden’s remarks was Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is also taking an aggressive stance on climate change. | Biden does not see Trump undoing much of environmental record |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to China promised on Tuesday to take a firm line with Beijing on issues from North Korea to trade disputes and human rights, and seemed poised for an easy confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad said he would use his decades of experience with China to press Beijing to do more to encourage North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions. “There’s other things they can do diplomatically and economically to send a clear signal that they, as well as the United States and other countries in the world, do not tolerate this expansion of nuclear technology and missiles,” Branstad said at his confirmation hearing. Pressed, Branstad said “there may well be” a role for measures such as imposing secondary sanctions on Chinese banks or other entities that violated U.N. Security Council resolutions by doing business with North Korea. He offered few specifics. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated that China was serious about enforcing U.N. resolutions and, referring to the possibility of secondary U.S. sanctions, said China opposed other countries using their law to sanction others or to harm Chinese interests. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called Branstad, 70, an “old friend” after decades of dealings on agricultural trade. But the Republican governor insisted he would take on difficult issues complicating Washington’s relationship with its largest trading partner and major creditor. That would contrast with Trump’s recent warm words for Xi, which have caused some U.S. allies to wonder if Trump’s focus on working with China on North Korea means Washington may not still have their backs. “The fact that the leader of China calls us an old friend, doesn’t mean that I’m going to be at all reluctant or bashful of bringing up issues ... be it human rights or intellectual property rights,” Branstad told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Committee members expressed few concerns about Branstad, signaling he likely will be confirmed easily. They had tough words for China. Senator Bob Corker, the panel’s Republican chairman, blasted China’s actions in the South China Sea, and “cyber theft of intellectual property.” He warned against focusing on short-term goals at the expense of long-term U.S. interests. “There’s no country in the world that we have so many issues with,” Corker said. Branstad took a hard line on the South China Sea, saying, “China cannot be allowed to use its artificial islands to coerce its neighbors or limit freedom of navigation or overflight.” Trump has taken an “America First” approach to trade. Branstad also stressed the importance of opening markets to agricultural goods, protecting intellectual property and addressing China’s “unfair and illegal” sales of low-priced steel. | Trump nominee for China ambassador promises firm line on Beijing |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon s Saad al-Hariri on Wednesday shelved his decision to resign as prime minister at the request of President Michel Aoun, easing a crisis that had deepened tensions in the Middle East. Hariri made his announcement after returning to Beirut for the first time since he quit abruptly on Nov. 4 in a broadcast from Saudi Arabia. Top Lebanese officials have said Riyadh forced him to quit and held him in the kingdom. Riyadh and Hariri deny this. At the presidential palace near Beirut, Hariri said he hoped his move would lead to a responsible dialogue...that deals with divisive issues and their repercussions on Lebanon s relations with Arab brothers. Hariri said all Lebanese sides must commit to keeping the country out of regional conflicts, a reference to the Iran-backed Hezbollah political and military movement. Hezbollah s regional military role has greatly alarmed Saudi Arabia, Hariri s long-time ally. I presented today my resignation to President Aoun and he urged me to wait before offering it and to hold onto it for more dialogue about its reasons and political background, and I showed responsiveness, he said in a televised statement. The resignation had shocked even Hariri s aides. He returned to Lebanon late on Tuesday night after French intervention. Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, had refused to accept the resignation because it happened in mysterious circumstances abroad. He had called Hariri a hostage in Riyadh. Hariri appeared to express relief that Aoun had not accepted the resignation right away. He thanked Aoun on Wednesday for respecting constitutional norms and his rejection of departing from them under any circumstances . The resignation pitched Lebanon to the forefront of the regional rivalry between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Islamist Iran, which backs Lebanon s Hezbollah, and raised concerns of a protracted crisis. In his resignation speech, Hariri had cited fear of assassination, and attacked Iran along with Hezbollah for sowing strife in the Arab world. Hundreds of Hariri supporters packed the streets near his house in central Beirut, waving the blue flag of his Future Movement political party. The Sunni leader told them he would stay with (them)... to be a line of defense for Lebanon, Lebanon s stability and Lebanon s Arabism . His presence in the country alone brings stability, said Manar Akoum, 26, as she stood with the celebrating crowd. Hariri s resignation was followed by a steep escalation in Saudi statements against the Lebanese government, which includes Shi ite Hezbollah. Riyadh said the government as a whole - not just Hezbollah - had declared war against it. Western governments including the United States struck a different tone, affirming their support for Hariri and the stability of Lebanon, which hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees - nearly one-in-four of the population. Ahead of his return to Beirut, Hariri had stressed the importance of the Lebanese state policy of staying out of regional conflicts, notably Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is battling Iran-backed Houthi fighters. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who had also called for Hariri s return, said on Monday his group was open to any dialogue and any discussion . Nasrallah also issued his clearest denial yet of any Hezbollah role in Yemen. A senior source in a political alliance that includes Hezbollah said Hariri s move on Wednesday would start a breakthrough in the crisis. This step is not detached from the framework of a complete solution whose features will appear in the coming days, the source told Reuters. Lebanese dollar bonds, which had fallen in response to Hariri s resignation, gained following Wednesday s announcement. A government minister from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a close ally of Saudi Arabia, said Lebanon must implement its policy of keeping out of Middle East conflicts in order to get out of its own crisis as well as regional troubles. The main problem facing that is the selective implementation of (this) principle and the functional Iranian role of Hezbollah outside the Lebanese framework, Anwar Gargash, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote on Twitter. Cyprus, where Hariri had briefly stopped on his journey home, said it would attempt to help defuse the crisis. Our common objective is stability in Lebanon, stability in our area. Within this context... the President of the Republic will undertake some initiatives precisely to promote this objective; stability in Lebanon, Cypriot government spokesman Nikos Christodoulides said. Hariri took office last year in a power-sharing deal that made Aoun head of state. He arrived in Beirut in time for independence day celebrations on Wednesday morning, taking the premier s seat alongside Aoun and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Hariri said he looked forward to real partnership with all the political powers, in placing Lebanon s interests high above any other interests and preserving coexistence among Lebanese. | Lebanon's PM Hariri shelves resignation, easing crisis added |
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico central bank governor Agustin Carstens said on Friday he is “implicitly” factoring in the possibility of Republican hopeful Donald Trump becoming U.S. president in the bank’s economic risk models. In an interview with El Financiero/Bloomberg Carstens was asked whether the chances of Trump, a persistent critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement, becoming the next president of the United States was in the central bank’s risk models. “Well, explicitly, no,” Carstens said. “But implicitly all of us have it in our heads, this possibility.” Carstens was also asked about Mexican monetary policy in the coming months after the bank launched a surprise rate hike on Feb. 17 to shore up the peso currency, which had been falling sharply against the dollar since the end of 2014. He reiterated that the February move was not the start of a monetary policy tightening cycle, but that the bank would be following moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve closely. “Our monetary policy will above all be led by ... the exchange rate, the monetary policy relative to the United States and the inflationary pressures that could occur due to the economic cycle in Mexico,” the central bank governor said. Trump, front-runner to win the Republican presidential nomination for the Nov. 8 election, sparked outrage in Mexico with campaign vows to slap tariffs on Mexican exports and to build a southern border wall and make Mexico pay for it. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said this month his country would not pay for Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and likened his “strident tone” to the ascent of dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Dave Graham; Editing by Richard Chang and Sam Holmes) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | edededex |
DORAL, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Democrat Hillary Clinton’s plan for Syria would “lead to World War Three,” because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia. In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, Trump said defeating Islamic State is a higher priority than persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, playing down a long-held goal of U.S. policy. Trump questioned how Clinton would negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin after demonizing him; blamed President Barack Obama for a downturn in U.S. relations with the Philippines under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte; bemoaned a lack of Republican unity behind his candidacy, and said he would easily win the election if the party leaders would support him. “If we had party unity, we couldn’t lose this election to Hillary Clinton,” he said. On Syria’s civil war, Trump said Clinton could drag the United States into a world war with a more aggressive posture toward resolving the conflict. Clinton has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone and “safe zones” on the ground to protect non-combatants. Some analysts fear that protecting those zones could bring the United States into direct conflict with Russian fighter jets. “What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria,” said Trump as he dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. “You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton. “You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,” he said. Clinton’s campaign dismissed the criticism, noting that both Republican and Democratic national security experts have denounced Trump as unfit to be commander-in-chief. “Once again, he is parroting Putin’s talking points and playing to Americans’ fears, all while refusing to lay out any plans of his own for defeating ISIS or alleviating humanitarian suffering in Syria,” Clinton spokesman Jesse Lehrich said in a statement. Trump said Assad is much stronger now than he was three years ago and said getting Assad to leave power was less important than defeating Islamic State. “Assad is secondary, to me, to ISIS,” he said. On Russia, Trump again knocked Clinton’s handling of U.S.-Russian relations while secretary of state and said her harsh criticism of Putin raised questions about “how she is going to go back and negotiate with this man who she has made to be so evil,” if she wins the presidency. On the deterioration of ties with the Philippines, Trump aimed his criticism at Obama, saying the president “wants to focus on his golf game” rather than engage with world leaders. Since assuming office, Duterte has expressed open hostility toward the United States, rejecting criticism of his violent anti-drug clampdown, using an expletive to describe Obama and telling the United States not to treat his country “like a dog with a leash.” The Obama administration has expressed optimism that the two countries can remain firm allies. Trump said Duterte’s latest comments showed “a lack of respect for our country.” The interview comes two weeks before the Nov. 8 election, with Trump trailing badly in the polls. He repeated his assertion that the “media is rigging the polls” and said his supporters were upset with Republican Party leadership. “The people are very angry with the leadership of this party, because this is an election that we will win 100 percent if we had support from the top. I think we’re going to win it anyway.” He said if he wins he would not consider putting Democrats in his cabinet but would work with them on legislation. READ MORE: Commentary: How Clinton could lose even as she wins | Exclusive: Trump says Clinton policy on Syria would lead to World War Three |
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday she would continue to govern in the interests of all Northern Ireland and uphold the agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence in the province. The statement comes as an impasse over the future of the Irish border once Britain leaves the European Union looked to have been resolved. This Government will continue to govern in the interests of the whole community in Northern Ireland and uphold the Agreements that have underpinned the huge progress that has been made over the past two decades, a statement published on the government s website said. | UK PM May promises to uphold N. Ireland peace process as Brexit impasse ends |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Urged on by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, Republican lawmakers rushing to scrap Obamacare said this week they hoped to make some changes intended to stabilize the insurance market while they work at repealing and replacing the law. The beginnings of a framework outlining what a post-Obamacare world could look like came in the same week that Congress approved a resolution instructing key committees of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to draft Obamacare repeal legislation by a target date of Jan. 27. The fate of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, is a high-stakes political showdown between Republicans and Democrats that potentially jeopardizes medical coverage for millions of Americans and risks causing chaos in the health insurance marketplace. The seven-year-old law has enabled up to 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain health coverage and helped slow the rise in healthcare spending. But Republicans have called it federal government overreach. “If our general goal is to move decisions out of Washington back to the states, we should be able to make those decisions in the next several months,” a key Republican senator working on the repeal, Lamar Alexander, told reporters outside the Senate this week. In a speech on the Senate floor, Alexander indicated Republicans are eyeing some moves insurers have said would help shore up the insurance plans offered on the Obamacare exchanges. The changes could be done by law or by regulation, Alexander said. Alexander said he favors continuing, at least temporarily, the cost-sharing subsidies that millions of Americans receive with their Obamacare exchange-based plans - a kind of financial assistance that helps keep down the cost of deductibles and co-pays. He advocates adjusting the special enrollment periods that insurers say are sometimes abused by people who wait until they are sick to sign up for insurance. Insurers have long sought changes that would fix this facet of Obamacare to weed out misuse. It would also help the transition to a new system, Alexander said, if individuals could use government premium subsidies to buy plans outside of the Obamacare marketplace. Alexander is chairman of the Senate health committee, one of the committees drafting the repeal legislation. He told reporters he had discussed his ideas with a number of senators and the process was evolving, but stressed it should be gradual, with some changes made by lawmakers and some by the secretary of Health and Human Services after he is confirmed. Trump has nominated Republican Representative Tom Price for the job. “Certainty is something the insurance industry needs so they don’t abandon coverage,” said Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, another Republican lawmaker who has been working on how to stabilize insurance markets. It was unclear whether lawmakers will reach the ambitious target date of Jan. 27 for drafting repeal legislation. But House Speaker Paul Ryan said on CNN on Thursday that Republicans are moving “as quickly as they can”. The 2010 law, Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature piece of domestic policy, touches almost all parts of the U.S. healthcare system, making its replacement likely to take effect over a number of years, even if lawmakers are trying to draft changes in weeks or months. | U.S. Republicans start framework for Obamacare replacement |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican leaders of the Senate on Tuesday rebuffed President Barack Obama’s appeal for hearings and a vote on his U.S. Supreme Court nominee during a face-to-face meeting that failed to budge them from their vow to block any nominee he offers. Obama, planning to name a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia in the coming weeks, huddled with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley in the White House Oval Office for less than an hour. “Senator Grassley and I made it clear that we don’t intend to take up a nominee or to have a hearing,” McConnell told reporters after the meeting. The meeting failed to produce any progress on how to proceed with finding a replacement for Scalia, a long-serving conservative justice who died on Feb. 13. McConnell and Grassley are insistent that Obama not pick a nominee and leave the decision to his successor, who takes office next January after the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. Obama is insistent that it is the Republican-led Senate’s constitutional duty to act on his nominee. “They made clear in their meeting with the president that they’re not going to change their mind just because the president says so,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said of the Republicans. Earnest said Obama still believes it was worthwhile to consult with the lawmakers before making his nomination. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said Obama stated during the meeting he would be willing to consider candidates for the Supreme Court proposed by the Republicans, but McConnell and Grassley offered no names. “We killed a lot of time talking about basketball and other stuff,” said Reid, who attended along with the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Patrick Leahy. Under the Constitution, the president nominates Supreme Court justices and the Senate must confirm them. Without Scalia, the court has four conservative and four liberal justices, meaning any potential Obama nominee could tip the court to the left for the first time in decades. McConnell and Grassley have said allowing the next president to pick the new justice would let voters have a say in the selection when they elect a new president. “Whether everybody in the meeting today wanted to admit it, we all know that considering a nomination in the middle of a heated presidential campaign is bad for the nominee, bad for the court, bad for the process and ultimately bad for the nation,” Grassley said in a statement. | No breakthrough in Supreme Court dispute between Obama, Republicans |
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia does not believe that Iran is abiding by the 2015 nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and six world powers, the kingdom s foreign minister said on Wednesday, without elaborating. We expect the international community to do whatever it takes to ensure that Iran is in compliance, the minister, Adel al-Jubeir, told reporters at the United Nations. | Saudi Arabia does not believe Iran abiding by nuclear deal: minister |
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Two men were injured in a drive-by shooting at South Africa s Cape Town International Airport, police said on Wednesday. Operations at the airport, the second busiest in the country and a tourism hub, were not affected, police spokesman Vish Naidoo said, adding the motive for the shooting was unknown. The airport is Africa s third busiest and handles around 10 million passengers a year, including tourists and businesspeople commuting to the economic hub Johannesburg. A man, about 50 years of age, was shot in a drive-by shooting and in the process a bystander, a 30-year-old man, was also hit, Naidoo said. The shooting took place in the early morning in a public area some distance from the airport s security gates, Naidoo said. Flights had not been affected, the airport s general manager Deon Cloete said in a statement. The shooting scene has been cordoned off while investigations continue, Cloete said. Local media reported that the shooting was gang-related, but Naidoo could not confirm that was the motive. | Two injured in shooting at South Africa's Cape Town airport |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of a U.S. Senate cyber security subcommittee said on Friday he planned to introduce sanctions legislation over “Russia’s cyber criminals” after Washington accused Russia of political cyber attacks ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Republican Senator Cory Gardner said his legislation would require the Obama administration to investigate those who have engaged in significant actions undermining cyber security and aggressively pursue sanctions when appropriate. Gardner is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity. | U.S. lawmaker wants cyber sanctions on Russia after hacking charges |
DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is seeking international support for its plan to relocate Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar to a remote Bay of Bengal island that critics say is flood-prone and unlivable. More than 300,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from Buddhist-majority Myanmar since the latest violence began on Aug. 25, joining more than 400,000 others already living there in cramped makeshift camps. The United Nations top human rights official on Monday slammed Myanmar for conducting a cruel military operation against the Rohingya, branding it a textbook example of ethnic cleansing . This is creating a huge challenge for Bangladesh in terms of providing shelter as well as other humanitarian assistance to them, Bangladesh s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday as Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali held talks with diplomats. He urged the international community to push Myanmar to find a permanent solution to this crisis and sought support for transportation of the Rohingya to Bhashan Char , also known as Thengar Char. Bangladesh, one of the world s poorest and most crowded nations, plans to develop Thengar Char, which only emerged from the silt off Bangladesh s delta coast 11 years ago and is two hours by boat from the nearest settlement. It regularly floods during June-September monsoons and, when seas are calm, pirates roam the nearby waters to kidnap fishermen for ransom. The plan to develop the island and use it to house refugees was criticized by humanitarian workers when it was proposed in 2015 and revived last year. Bangladesh, though, insists it alone has the right to decide where to shelter the growing numbers of refugees. | Bangladesh seeks support to move fleeing Rohingya to remote, flood-prone island |
HAVANA/BOGOTA (Reuters) - Members of Colombia’s Marxist FARC guerrillas will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Cuba, a spokeswoman for Colombia’s government peace negotiators said on Sunday, adding a twist to a historic visit to the island by U.S. President Barack Obama. The meeting with Kerry on Monday will be the first time a U.S. secretary of state has met the negotiators from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who have been talking peace with the Colombian government in Havana for more than three years. “At around 4 p.m. (2000 GMT), the meeting between Kerry and the FARC delegation will take place,” after the Colombian government delegation meet him, the spokeswoman said. A source at Colombia’s Office of the High Commissioner for Peace said the rebels and Colombian government negotiators would also go to an exhibition game between Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba’s national team on Tuesday. That game will be attended by Obama, who on Sunday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years. But FARC negotiator Pastor Alape said he was not aware of an invitation to attend the baseball game. He said that before meeting with Kerry, the rebels would meet the U.S. special envoy for Colombian peace talks, Bernard Aronson, to agree on an agenda. The United States sees the Colombian peace talks hosted in Havana as an example of how restoring normal relations with Cuba can help its wider goals in Latin America. Latin America’s longest war has killed some 220,000 people and displaced millions of others since 1964. The government and rebels are attempting to reach a deal that would be placed before Colombian voters for approval, with a U.N. mission supervising rebel disarmament. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by the nom de guerre Timochenko, had set a self-imposed March 23 deadline to reach a comprehensive pact but have since conceded that goal may not be reached. Washington designated the FARC as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, and many of its leaders have been indicted in the United States on charges of cocaine trafficking. | Colombia's FARC rebels to meet Kerry in Cuba during Obama tripdsadsad |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran s military chief warned Israel against breaching Syrian airspace and territory on a visit to Damascus on Wednesday, raising tensions with Israel as it voices deep concern over Tehran s influence in Syria. General Mohammad Baqeri pledged to increase cooperation with Syria s military to fight Israel and insurgents, Iranian and Syrian state media said. Iranian forces and Iran-backed Shi ite militias, including Hezbollah, have provided critical military support to Damascus, helping it regain swathes of Syria from rebels and militants. It s not acceptable for the Zionist regime to violate the land and airspace of Syria anytime it wants, Baqeri said at a news conference with his Syrian counterpart. We are in Damascus to assert and cooperate to confront our common enemies, the Zionists and terrorists, he said, a reference to Israel and Sunni Muslim jihadists including Islamic State. We drew up the broad lines for this cooperation, Syrian state media cited the Iranian military chief of staff as saying. Iran s expanding clout during Syria s more than six-year war has raised alarm in Israel, which has said it would act against any threat from its regional arch-enemy Tehran. Israel s air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and Hezbollah nearly 100 times during the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Iran was strengthening its foothold in Syria and that Israel would do whatever it takes to protect its security. Tensions have risen this year between Lebanon s Hezbollah and Israel, which have avoided a major conflict since 2006. This week, the Israeli military said it attacked a Syrian anti-aircraft battery that had fired at its planes over Lebanon. But the Syrian army said it hit an Israeli warplane after it breached its airspace at the Syria-Lebanon border. [nL8N1MR2EX Our job is to prevent war, and you do that through deterrence. What we saw in Syria (on Monday) fell within this framework, the Israeli defense minister told Israel Radio on Wednesday before the Iranian military chief s comments. We will do whatever is necessary for (our) security, Avigdor Lieberman added. We will not change our operating procedures because of shooting or a threat of this type or another. | From Damascus, Iran vows to confront Israel |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed South Carolina congressman Mick Mulvaney to serve as White House budget director in a 51-49 vote that largely followed party lines. Underscoring the rocky reception that President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees have had on Capitol Hill, the vote came as Republican Senator John McCain opposed Mulvaney along with 46 Democrats and two independents. McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Wednesday he was concerned about Mulvaney’s opposition to defense spending. An outspoken budget hawk who has been branded by Democrats as a threat to popular social programs including Social Security and Medicare, Mulvaney entered the House of Representatives as a Tea Party candidate in 2011 and is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Democrats have also criticized him for failing to pay more than $15,000 in taxes related to a household employee until after he was nominated. Mulvaney was narrowly approved earlier this month by both the Senate Budget Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee, where McCain provided a crucial ‘yes’ vote to move the nomination forward. | Senate confirms Mulvaney as Trump's budget director |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The battle for the city of Raqqa, which Islamic State had used as its headquarters in Syria, is drawing to an end. Islamic State militants have lost swathes of land to various offensives across Syria and Iraq, forced into a diminishing foothold along the Euphrates river valley. Their defeat in Raqqa would be a milestone in the fight to roll back the theocratic caliphate Islamic State declared in 2014 in both countries. Following are some facts about Raqqa: Raqqa sits on the Euphrates river around 90 km (56 miles) from the Turkish border in north central Syria. Hardline Sunni militant group Islamic State overran Raqqa in January 2014, seizing control from rebel factions opposed to the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The United States has said Islamic State planned and sent teams from Raqqa to carry out attacks on cities including Paris, Brussels and Istanbul. THE ANTI-IS OFFENSIVE The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of mostly Kurdish and Arab militias, began to advance towards Raqqa city in November 2016. After encircling the city, they launched the offensive to take it, facing tough resistance. The United States-led coalition supports the SDF with air strikes and special forces on the ground. The battle for Raqqa has taken a severe toll on civilians. The United Nations said in March the city contained around 200,000 people, just under its pre-war population. Since late last year, fighting around and in Raqqa has displaced tens of thousands of people. Many have fled the city to camps in surrounding territory now under the control of the SDF and its strongest component, the Kurdish YPG militia. Civilians trapped inside the Islamic State enclave in the city have endured miserable conditions for months, lacking water, power, food and healthcare. Parts of Raqqa that the SDF captured have mostly been cleared of residents. Air strikes, fighting and Islamic State snipers and mines have killed many hundreds of people. The coalition says it is careful to avoid civilian casualties in its bombing runs in Syria and Iraq. But the U.N. human rights office and rights group Amnesty International have raised concerns about reports of high civilian deaths. Islamic State has imposed its very strict interpretation of Islamic law on Raqqa s residents. The fighters have carried out public executions, lashings and violent punishments for infringements of their rule. The Raqqa campaign has stirred tension between the United States and NATO-ally Turkey. Potential Kurdish influence in the future of the mainly Arab city is sensitive both for some activists from Raqqa and for Turkey. The YPG has become the main U.S. partner in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria. Ankara views it as a Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency within Turkey, and fears growing Kurdish power along its border. The SDF s political allies have set up a Raqqa Civil Council of people from the city, which the SDF says it will hand control to once its fighters have defeated Islamic State. This echoes the pattern in other towns and cities that the SDF captured. The U.S.-led coalition has helped train a new police force for the city. Islamic State has made enemies of all sides in the more than six-year Syrian conflict, with separate offensives now trying to clear it from its last foothold in the towns along the Euphrates river in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border. Besides the U.S.-backed SDF, the Syrian army, with Russian jets and Iran-backed militias, is also waging its own campaign against Islamic State in eastern Syria. A modern-day provincial transport hub and market town, Raqqa was built by the Abbasid Islamic Caliphate in the eighth century, serving as its capital at one point. It has been inhabited since antiquity and contains important archaeological and architectural sites. The United Nations has said they have been extensively looted during the war and religious buildings have been damaged. Islamic State militants released a video of them bombing a large part of the Uwais al-Qarani shrine complex in March 2014. | Factbox - Battle for Raqqa, Islamic State's Syrian HQ near end
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will begin a major push next week to convince the public of the need for tax reform, shifting his focus to fiscal policy in an effort to win a big legislative victory by the end of the year, The Financial Times reported on Friday. Trump would begin the effort next Wednesday with a speech in Missouri, the first in a series of addresses to generate public support on the issue, Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, told the newspaper. “We are completely engaged in tax reform,” Cohn told the FT in an interview. “Starting next week the president’s agenda and calendar is going to revolve around tax reform. He will start being on the road making major addresses justifying the reasoning for tax reform.” Although Cohn stressed that tax reform would be front and center of Trump’s agenda, the Republican-controlled Congress faces two other pressing issues when it returns from its August recess on Sept. 5. Lawmakers need to approve an increase in the U.S. debt ceiling to allow the federal government to keep borrowing money and paying its bills, including its debt obliterations. Separately they need to pass at least stop-gap spending measures to keep the government operating. Deadlines on both issues will loom within weeks after lawmakers return from their break. Asked by the FT whether the debate over the debt ceiling could derail the tax reform drive, Cohn said that “at the end of the day, Congress has to increase the debt ceiling - that is just the reality.” He added that this would be in September, before tax reform legislation. “The key point is this: tax reform is the White House’s number one focus right now,” he added. Cohn said White House officials had been working with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and other leading congressional Republicans on “an outline and skeleton” for the tax reform proposal, “and we have a good skeleton that we have agreed to.” The details Cohn discussed were similar to those mentioned by Ryan at a meeting with Boeing employees on Thursday. Asked whether the focus on tax reform had been complicated by Twitter attacks by the Republican president on McConnell and Ryan, Cohn said the White House officials worked well with the two “and we have made a massive amount of progress” on taxes. Cohn said the House Ways and Means Committee would put more “flesh and bone” on the tax reform plan when lawmakers return from the recess. He said he believed a bill could pass tax committees in both chambers and be passed by both the House and Senate by the end of 2017. In the case of individual taxpayers, Cohn said the president’s reform plan would protect the three big deductions that people can claim on taxes: for home mortgages, charitable giving and retirement savings. Beyond that, it would increase the caps for the standard deduction while eliminating most other personal deductions, Cohn said. The plan also aims to get rid of taxes on estates left when people die. Cohn said for businesses, the administration is proposing to lower corporate tax rates, while eliminating many of the deductions that businesses use to reduce the amount of tax they must pay. Asked whether the corporate tax rate could be cut to 15 percent as previously suggested by Trump, Cohn said, “I would like to get the tax rate as low as possible so that businesses want to create jobs here.” He said the administration would propose going to a system where American companies would not have to pay additional tax when they bring profits earned overseas back to the United States. “Today, they often have to pay extra taxes for bringing profits back to the U.S.,” Cohn said. “Our current system basically creates a penalty for headquartering in the U.S.” He said the administration did envision a one-time low tax rate on all overseas profits. | Trump to begin tax reform push next week, White House adviser tells FT |
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has two proposals on how to secure a frictionless border with EU member Ireland after Brexit, a new customs partnership or a highly streamlined approach to customs, Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire said on Sunday. We set out two proposals in relation to how we would deal with the issue of tariffs, how we would deal with those sorts of elements in relation to customs whether that be a new customs partnership where we would effectively apply a similar or the same tariff that the EU currently applies to goods coming into the EU, or a highly streamlined approach with effectively exemptions that would apply for small business, he told Sky News. | Britain has ways to secure no hard border with Ireland post-Brexit, says minister |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bill Nelson sent letters to the chief executives of 10 major U.S.-based airlines on Monday, urging them to cap airline fares for passengers fleeing Hurricane Maria so that confusion over cost does not delay evacuations, an aide said. I urge you to begin the process now for implementing capped airfare, Nelson said in his letter, noting that Maria is already a major hurricane. Individuals and families should not be forced to delay or cancel their evacuation efforts because of confusion over the cost of airfare. | Senator urges U.S. airlines to cap fares for people fleeing Maria |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans have reached a tentative budget deal that could allow tax reform legislation to eliminate as much as $1.5 trillion in revenues over 10 years through tax cuts, raising the odds that their planned tax overhaul would expand the federal deficit. Two members of the Senate Budget Committee, Republicans Pat Toomey and Bob Corker, announced the formal agreement late on Tuesday, but their joint news release did not provide dollar figures for revenue reduction or tax cuts. The prospective tax cuts are part of closed-door talks among 12 Senate Budget Committee Republicans who are drafting a fiscal 2018 budget measure needed to help the 100-member Senate pass a tax overhaul with as few as 51 Republicans votes and prevent Democrats from blocking the legislation. The U.S. economy is in a steady expansion and stock markets are rising. But the tax cuts being weighed by congressional Republicans, with encouragement from President Donald Trump, are on a scale normally reserved for times of economic hardship and intended to drive annual economic growth above 3 percent. Trump campaigned last year on a promise of comprehensive tax reform. But Republicans have made little tangible progress toward that ambitious goal so far. Toomey told reporters he is confident that Republicans will agree to a budget resolution that foresees a deficit in the first decade. He said, however, that talks have not settled definitively on $1.5 trillion. “I’d like to see a bigger number,” said Toomey, who argues that tax cuts would increase economic growth. In their joint news release, Toomey and Corker said they agreed on a budget resolution that would use a standard analysis of the impact of the tax cuts on the deficit. Some Republicans like Toomey have pushed for a “dynamic” model, which tends to assume an increased economic stimulus effect from tax cuts, resulting in smaller projected increases to the deficit. Senator John Thune, a member of the Senate Republican leadership team, said he expected the agreement to provide maximum flexibility to craft a tax overhaul capable of driving economic growth and ultimately raising worker wages. But looming in the background is Washington’s steady flow of red ink that adds every year to the $20 trillion national debt, a target of outrage not long ago for Republican “fiscal hawks.” In recent weeks, some fiscal hawks have expressed a willingness to consider deficit financing for tax reform but many at levels well below $500 billion. Toomey’s comments suggest Senate Republicans may be looking to deficit spending as a way to cut taxes on businesses and individuals while avoiding hard decisions that would be needed to raise taxes elsewhere or eliminate popular tax breaks. If adopted by Congress in a budget resolution, the $1.5 trillion figure would set a ceiling on how much revenue tax reform could eliminate over 10 years. Analysts and Democrats have warned that higher deficits resulting from tax cuts would eventually overwhelm economic growth at a time when U.S. interest rates are set to rise. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, whose panel would use the budget figure in crafting a tax reform bill, told reporters he was not sure that revenue losses of $1.5 trillion were needed for tax reform. Senator Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee’s top Democrat, dismissed the development as a distraction from the more important question of how Republican tax reform would ultimately benefit the wealthy. “It looks to me like yet another trial balloon,” Wyden said. Republicans have been unable to agree on how to pay for tax cuts and other proposed tax changes, aside from arguing that some lost revenue would be clawed back from the buoyant economic growth they believe tax reform will deliver. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to do tax cuts that pay for themselves,” said Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, another budget committee Republican. “But I think most people would concede that cutting taxes does stimulate the economy.” | Senate Republicans weigh tax cuts, deficit expansion |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional leaders and White House officials will release a document during the week of Sept. 25 outlining the framework for tax reform, a congressional source said on Wednesday. Afterward, the goal is for Congress to finish the budget process by mid-October, the source said. | Tax reform framework will appear end-Sept.: Congress source |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama does plan to sign a North Korea sanctions bill, the White House said on Wednesday. In a press briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Josh Earnest gave no indication of when such a measure might come. | Obama plans to sign North Korea sanctions bill: White House |